


Hang the Moon

by heartofcathedrals



Series: To Build a Home [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Asthma, Family, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 51,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1461598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofcathedrals/pseuds/heartofcathedrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nearly a year after Stiles and Derek adopt Isaac, they are faced with the question of whether or not to expand their pack. Can they handle everything life is about to throw at them, or will they crumble beneath the weight of everything that has been threatening to tear them apart from the very beginning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you for sticking through _To Build a Home_ with me, and now the sequel _Hang the Moon_! I've been really sick (I have a chronic illness) for the past few months and extremely busy with work, but I have A LOT written that I just need to sort through, add to, and send to my amazing beta reader Casey before posting. :) Please leave kudos, review, share, etc.! Don't forget to subscribe!

“Can we even handle another child right now?” Derek asked quietly as he held the four-month-old baby in his arms in the center of their kitchen, one of her clawed hands reaching up at him as she let out a series of shrill cries that shook her little body. She then took hold of his thin t-shirt, five small puncture marks soon visible in the navy material. He carefully extracted each finger before enveloping her inside of the yellow blanket so that it wrapped her arms and legs tightly inside, the swaddling sensation calming her tears just enough so that he could talk over them. “I mean, we’ve only had Isaac a little under a year now and I’m worried that he’s not ready for something this big.” 

“We can’t let just anyone have her, Derek,” Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hated that he was too fragile to handle a werebaby that had just been separated from her mother, that Derek, the one who hadn’t even _wanted_ children, was the one embracing her as she sobbed and searched frantically for her mother. What was worse was that he could already feel a strong love for the child growing within him, a sense of attachment so strong that he knew he’d never be able to break it even if she was placed somewhere else; he imagined his father on the phone with social services, pacing in his office as he attempted to push the necessary paperwork through the right channels so that she could be _theirs_.

“I could find someone else. Another pack,” Derek offered, Stiles able to hear the guilt in his husband’s voice and see the worry in the way his wide, focused eyes were watering. 

“She needs to be with an alpha,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “One that was born a werewolf.” Derek wasn’t surprised that his husband knew that without someone like him, the child would struggle to gain control of her transformations. That she might not find an anchor, especially after losing both of her biological parents at once. “You know that, so I don’t understand why you’re just willing to hand her off-”

“I don’t want to _hand her off_ , Stiles,” Derek stated sternly, his hold around the baby tightening at the thought. “I’m just saying that I don’t know if we can do this!” 

“She needs us, Derek! Just like Isaac needed us. We weren’t ready then and we’ve been doing fine. I mean, who could ever be ready for parenthood?” Stiles rambled, pacing anxiously in front of Derek, hands moving from his hair to his pockets and back again. “Plus, that other pack could be tracking her _right now_. My father knew that after what happened in the preserve last night and that’s why he asked _us_.”

Isaac, woken by the commotion of Max’s not-so-quiet drop-off that morning, appeared in the doorway in his white and red fire truck pajamas, eyes focused intently on Derek holding a baby in a fleece blanket. 

“Who’s that?” he asked quietly, Balto in one arm, fingers of the other going right for his mouth. He tilted his head as he narrowed his eyes, confusion making his lips twist. 

Stiles and Derek paused for a moment and looked at each other, both parents unsure of how to answer. Finally, Derek nodded to Stiles as if giving permission to take the lead. With a deep breath, he complied. 

“This is baby Maxine,” Stiles smiled as he knelt down to his son’s level, looking up at the infant for just a moment before returning his focus to Isaac. “She doesn’t have a mommy or daddy anymore so we’re inviting her to join our family.” 

“Where’d they go?” Isaac asked innocently, not even noticing the second part of Stiles’ sentence. 

“Max’s mommy and daddy went to heaven last night, honey.” 

“Like all our mommies and Papa’s daddy?” 

“Yes, just like that,” Stiles smiled meekly, one hand coming up and resting atop Isaac’s shoulder. “So we need to make her feel welcome and loved. She’s a little scared because everyone and everything here is so new, just like when we first brought you home.” 

“She’s gonna stay forever?” he asked, fingers still in his mouth. 

“We think so,” Stiles stated, waiting for Isaac’s reaction. 

Isaac wasn’t sure what to think. He could hear the baby gurgling and making soft sounds, could only see her dark, wispy hair peeking out from beneath the blanket as she wiggled and whined in Papa’s arms. 

“Why don’t I lift you up so you can say hello to your new baby sister?” Stiles asked with a warm smile, Isaac not responding but also not resisting when his daddy picked him up to get a somewhat closer look. Her hazel eyes locked with his the moment Derek peeled the edge of the blanket away from the baby’s face, a tiny clawed hand reaching out towards Isaac just as Stiles managed to nonchalantly pull him away. 

The doorbell rang and interrupted their family moment, something Stiles was actually thankful for because it meant that maybe Isaac hadn’t seen the claws and therefore wouldn’t be asking even more of his recent toddler questions that began with, “But why?” for hours on end. 

He’d expected to see a person at the door, but a cardboard box with a printed picture of an overtly girly highchair stood in the way. A quick glance towards the curb in front of their house revealed a cherry red mustang with a coffee colored ragtop. Lydia. 

“Hello, hello!” she chirped excitedly as she appeared from behind the box in a white linen sundress, a large Coach bag on one arm and bags from Babies R Us hanging from the other. 

“Aunt Lyddie!” Isaac cheered, squirming from Stiles’ arms and rushing out onto the porch to wrap his arms around her legs. 

“What is all of this, exactly?” Stiles asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the eight large plastic bags of toys and baby supplies Lydia had carried into the house. 

“Don’t play stupid, Stiles. You were always the intelligent one,” she smiled as she adjusted Isaac on her hip, the four-year-old grinning as he rested his head on her exposed shoulder. “Oh, and there’s a huge box of diapers in the trunk.” 

“What I meant was, why did you purchase all of this stuff?” He took a deep breath to quell his increasing anxiety, his lungs burning as he switched from inhaling to expelling the air. He had the sudden urge to excuse himself to the bathroom and take a few puffs of medicine, but his right hand slid into his pocket instead and gripped the inhaler as if touching it would be enough to help him breathe easier. 

“Because there are things you’re going to need today and I know that you can’t leave the house with Maxine,” she explained, her voice brimming with excitement only so that Isaac didn’t sense the argument Stiles was obviously trying to start. 

“I could have picked up a few things on my own,” he grumbled, trying to discern between the feeling of being overwhelmed and that of jealousy. 

“Thank you, Lydia,” Derek offered from the two of them as he came closer with Max still wrapped in her blanket. “You know that you didn’t have to get us anything.” 

“So, you guys said, “yes,” then?” she finally asked, the eagerness in her eyes nearly sending Stiles over the edge; _he’d_ had the word ‘yes’ on his mind since his father had called him early that morning, but Derek was the one thing holding them back. 

Stiles’ scornful eyes tried to meet his husband’s, but Derek was already keeping his gaze in line with Lydia’s, a small chuckle erupting from him as he looked down at the bundle in his arms. “Yeah,” he offered sweetly with a nod, relieving the constriction that had settled in Stiles’ chest during the past few hours, the upward curve and genuine content in Derek’s lips as they formed a smile reminding him in every way of the man he’d married. 


	2. There Is More Heart Than Ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
> Finally, chapter 2 (over 6,000 words long) is here! I have been busy with end of the school year stuff and my usual chronic illness, plus I wanted this chapter to be perfect, so it took a few weeks to get it together. For those of you wondering if this is the sequel to _To Build a Home_ , it most definitely is. I changed the title from _Rock and Tide_ because I wasn't a fan. Also, Casey did a wonderful job with her critiques (as she always does) and really brought this chunk to its highest potential. Thank you, Casey, for the chapter titles ideas as well! As always, please leave questions, comments, and/or concerns in the comment section. I make it a point to respond to everyone! Kudos and subscribing/favoriting make my day. :) Enjoy!

John didn’t have to be at the Stilinski-Hale house to be wide-awake, his mind too busy replaying the whirlwind that had been the past two and a half weeks to allow him the sleep he knew he needed; between watching Isaac and Max and taking on extra night shifts at the station in the beginning of May to take over for someone on maternity leave, his sleep schedule had been thrown completely off.That, and he knew Stiles was going to break from the stress soon. John could see it so clearly, the paleness in his son’s skin reminding him of the silent stressors that had caused his sleepwalking and night terrors in high school. Despite their then-supernatural cause, he knew that the anxiety was growing serious once again, waiting in the shadows to expose itself during a vulnerable moment. Stiles had always been good at hiding things until he couldn’t any longer, and with the stress of everything they'd gone through with Isaac’s health and the workload he’d somehow managed to juggle for the last few months, John couldn’t help but troubleshoot possible solutions to alleviate the chaos that he’d partially caused by pushing Maxine on them so suddenly. 

Derek seemed to be the only one handling things pretty well, but then again, he was good at hiding his emotions too, and John knew that things had been far from easy for him lately with Max unable to anchor, which meant that the rival pack that had killed Maxine’s parents had a better chance of locating her.

All of that, plus Isaac's bouts of hives appearing and disappearing day-in and day-out along with his usual wheezing and chesty coughs, was more than enough to stress any father out. John had thought that those were the only things burdening his grandson, but a few days after his fourth birthday, before Max had even come into their lives, he realized just how much was actually brewing beneath the surface, complicating things in a way that he knew no four year old should have to deal with. 

The cashier had handed John his grocery receipt and began to scan the next customer’s items, Isaac rambling excitedly about his weekend from his seat in the shopping cart. “And the library lady weaded to us on the carpet and then Daddy helpeded me get a library card!” All that John could do was smile as he pushed his grandson and the bags of groceries out through the automatic doors, passing a group of workers taking their smoking break beside the bottle return machines. 

“Daddy let me play wif the toys there and we even finded a piwate book!” An elderly lady in front of them stopped to let a few cars pass before she slowly pushed her cart into the parking lot, Isaac still explaining his visit to the library as they waited behind her. “Wif pop-ups…and the ocean m-moves…and…” he continued, slightly winded. Isaac took a deep breath in and coughed to try and get the taste of smoke out of his mouth, eyes widening at the realization of what he was breathing in. “T-the bad guy!” he started to cry, little chest starting to heave as he wheezed loudly. He took hold of the shopping cart handle, elbows locked while he looked around in a panic. “The bad guy! Gampa! He’s…here! He’s here!” 

All that John could focus on was Isaac’s wheezing and rapid intakes of air, which was why he rushed the shopping cart to the car with one hand while his fingers from the other fumbled with the unlock button on his key fob. His next thought was to settle the child in his car seat and find his backpack. After prepping the medicine and helping Isaac position the mask of the spacer, he guided him through a few puffs, taking a breath for himself once he was sure Isaac had received enough medication and seemed to be calming down. 

“Gampa!” Isaac pleaded breathlessly and wide-eyed when he saw John try to exit the backseat, afraid he was leaving him behind. 

“I’m just going to start the car and turn the AC on. It’ll help open your lungs up, honey.” 

“No!” he whined, more tears forming in his eyes, breathing still choppy. “Don’t leave! I’m scawed!” 

“Hey, tell me more about your pirate book,” John suggested as he leaned across to the front of the car and turned the key in the ignition, AC blowing through the vents and filling the hot car as he took the middle seat beside Isaac. “You said that there were pirates in it and you could make the water move?” 

“There was…a ship,” Isaac explained, still trying to figure out how to talk and manage his breathing. “O-one of the piwates had…a parrot on his…his shoulder. A-and his wings flappeded…if you pulled on the…page. Daddy said we…had to be…careful.” 

John couldn’t help but think of Stiles in that moment, how he was always moving during attacks as a child, squirming and pushing the medicine away even though he knew it would make the tightness in his chest feel better. The only way he and Claudia had ever been able to get him to sit somewhat still was to have him talk between puffs of the inhaler, a means of distracting him that almost always worked.

As he listened to Isaac go on about the book and watched as his breathing became easier, he thought back to fifteen minutes earlier when the child was laughing and calling the stack of coupons he’d spent most of the trip pulling from the little red dispensers in each aisle his ‘money’. John had taken a picture on his phone and sent it to Stiles; now, all he could think about was the inevitable phone call he’d be making to explain Isaac’s attack. 

“Don’t feel good,” Isaac whined miserably before letting out a series of tight coughs. 

“Gampa’s just gonna put the groceries in the trunk really quick and then we’ll head home and see if you need a treatment, okay?” he asked softly. 

“I want Daddy!” Isaac began to cry, tears streaming down his reddened face. 

“I know, honey. I’m gonna call him right now,” John assured him. “Why don’t you tell Balto about your trip to the library while I get the bags in the car?” 

“No!" he continued to cry, little hands balling into fists. "I wanna go home! Right now!"

“Just another minute or so and we’ll head home,” John promised as he quickly filled the trunk with the small amount of bags from the basket of their shopping cart.

“Gampa!” Isaac continued to cry. “I’m scawed!”he yelled even louder, trying to curl into himself as he held tightly on to Balto. “The bad guy’s gonna...get me! He’s gonna get me!” 

“Hey, there’s no bad guy, honey,” John assured his grandson as he closed the trunk and came around to Isaac’s door, one hand reaching for Isaac's shoulder as he pushed his hair out of his face with the other. “And even if there was, Gampa would protect you.” 

“He’s here! He’s here!” the child cried loudly again, knuckles white from his grip on his stuffed wolf. “He’s gonna take me away!” That’s when John noticed that Isaac was shaking, that he was so hyperfocused looking through each of the car windows with his wide eyes that he was barely able to control the rate of his breathing again. It took John a moment to put the pieces together, but when he finally did, he found himself recalling the two nights he’d responded to calls at the Leahy house: How Isaac’s eyes and breathing had been exactly the same as that moment, how their living room had reeked of cigarette smoke. His grandson’s shaking, he now knew, wasn’t from the medicine. 

“He can’t hurt you anymore, Isaac,” John promised softly as he lifted the child from his seat and squeezed him tight between the cars. “There’s no bad guy here, I promise. Shh, just relax. Breathe, honey.” 

Isaac didn’t say anything in response, but his breathing began to slow as John kissed his head and rubbed his back, the two separating only when the late May sun began to burn on their skin and the heat seemed to rise straight from the dark pavement. 

They’d exited the parking lot and merged onto the main road towards the house, Isaac keeping a tight hold on Balto even after John had carried them through the front door of the Stilinski-Hale house. 

“When’s his next appointment?” he’d asked Stiles in the kitchen over coffee once Isaac was home and napping through a treatment on the couch. 

“We’re seeing the allergist for the first time on Friday,” Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head with a sigh, shaking his head at the thought that Isaac had had yet another attack. 

“I meant Dr. Galler.” 

Stiles lifted his gaze and narrowed his eyes at his father; John had mentioned the asthma, but not the panic that had struck Isaac the moment he’d inhaled the cigarette smoke. 

“It started as an anxiety attack,” he explained, careful to keep his tone level so as not to stress his son out any further.

“He knows smoke isn’t good for him, so I can see why he might panic,” Stiles reasoned. 

“It was more than that,” John added, looking away for a moment as he tried to find the right words. “Stiles, I think that the smell of the smoke triggered something in his memory.” His hands were moving as he spoke, his own anxiety mounting at the thought of what he was about to reveal to his son. “I didn’t realize what was really going on until I’d given him the medicine and tried putting the groceries in the trunk. He was crying and it seemed like he was just worked up from his attack but then he was hyperventilating and hyperfocusing. The kid was so scared,” he sighed. “It took me nearly twenty minutes to calm him down and ease him back into his carseat.” 

“What do you mean?” Stiles prompted, though it was obvious that he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear what his father was trying to say. 

John took a deep breath. “Has he talked about a ‘bad guy’ before?” 

“Yeah, but we just attribute it to his PTSD; there’s no one actually coming after him. Sean’s in jail and-” 

“Stiles, the night I found Isaac the Leahy house was littered with ashtrays,” John interrupted. 

“What?” He could feel his heart starting to race, felt a wave of anxiety rush over him as he fought to catch his breath. 

“They smoked.” 

Stiles wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was anger or heartbreak or both. He knew how hard it was for Isaac to breathe without smoke filling the air around him and couldn’t bear to let the related information that had surfaced from the formal police reports and Dr. Galler’s visits fill his mind. 

“CPS hadn’t picked up on it before and our visit that night wasn’t exactly planned,” John sighed. 

Stiles was up and out of his chair in seconds, pacing the kitchen as he rubbed his face and tried to keep himself from tearing up. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he asked as he stopped in front of his father, a few tears finally falling.

“I thought it was in the reports that you’d read. I…I assumed you knew. I didn’t even really think about it being a trigger until Isaac started having an attack today,” John promised as he stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles shook his head and pulled away. 

“I had no idea,” John admitted, afraid to move closer. “Stiles, I swear.” 

“It’s not that,” he sniffled. “I just…feel so guilty,” Stiles sniffled between wheezes as he leaned forward on the kitchen table and slammed one palm against the wood. His chest was heaving just like Isaac’s had been nearly an hour earlier, sobs mixing with painful inhales of air. “B-because I can’t change all of the awful things that happened to him in that house. A-and I thought that maybe his breathing would be better by now, that we’d be able to put the nebulizer away for a little while and there'd be some kind of relief period, but he just keeps getting attacks and hives and I…I…” 

“I know,” John whispered as he got up and pulled his son into his arms, rocking him back and forth, careful to give him room to breathe freely. “I know, Stiles.”

“We’ve been trying so hard,” he sobbed into his father’s flannel shirt, his body shaking, legs weak as he leaned in close. “We don’t know what else to do.” There was desperation in his voice, the kind that reminded John of himself the night he’d almost lost Stiles at thirteen. 

“You’ve got that appointment coming up, and you’re doing everything your mother and I would have done for you, Stiles. That’s all that you can do right now.” 

“It’s not enough, though,” he sniffled, another sob growing within him at the realization. “None of it feels like it’s ever gonna be enough!” 

“Trust me, it is,” John whispered, hating that that was all he could offer to his son, that that was the truth they’d have to accept for the time being. 

He turned to his other side on the bed and sighed as he let the memory go, the pillow cool against his cheek, neon green glare of the numbers on his alarm clock illuminating a school picture of Isaac smiling happily on his nightstand. Until nearly a year ago, a picture of Stiles from preschool had been in that exact wooden frame, precisely angled so that his clock could allow him to make out his son's features in the dark. How many nights after Claudia passed had he stared at that frame and wondered how he would do it all alone? The ADHD, the asthma, the gaping hole she had left in their lives? There'd been so many moments after Claudia where John had felt exactly like Stiles, and yet, it seemed as though he had learned nothing, and he couldn't help but think that his decision regarding Maxine, while the right one, was still, somehow, also wrong at the exact same time. 

He sighed again and turned away from the clock and the picture, eyes staring straight into the darkness until he couldn't keep them open any longer. 

x

“Take her back!” Isaac blubbered through his tears that same night, hands pressed over his ears as Maxine screamed to her little heart’s content down the hall; it was three in the morning during the turn of her first full moon in the Stilinski-Hale house and Derek was finding it extremely difficult to get the infant to anchor. 

“Hey, do you remember what it was like those first few nights after Papa and I brought you home?” Stiles asked softly as he cuddled Isaac in his twin bed, rubbing his exposed arm with just the tips of his fingers to try and relax him. 

“I didn’t cry like Max!” he grumbled as his tears slowed, hands still against his ears. 

“Yes, you did. Maybe not as loudly, because you were having a lot of trouble breathing, but Papa and I were up with you for many nights trying to get you to feel safe in your new home.” 

“She doesn’t like it here!” Isaac said, pulling his hands from his ears and turning to his father to talk. “All she does is whine and scweam!” 

“Well, you know how you sometimes get attacks in the middle of the night?” Stiles asked, Isaac nodding against the pillow. “This is kind of like that for Max. She doesn’t feel well right now and she can’t help it.” 

“’Cause she’s a wolf?”

“Yes, just like Papa.”

“But Papa doesn’t scweam all the time when there’s a full moon!”

“That’s because Papa’s parents taught him how to control himself. Max is too little to learn it on her own so she needs Papa to help.” 

“Does she need med’cine?” Isaac asked, still somewhat confused by the idea. Stiles was impressed that their son was trying to figure out something that might help his little sister despite all of the comments he’d just let out. 

“No, baby. It’s not like that,” he smiled softly.

“Does it hurt?”

“The crying?”

“The claws.” So he _had_ seen them.

“Maybe a little, but she’ll be okay,” Stiles admitted, not wanting to let Isaac in on every detail; there would be time for that later, when they’d actually had a decent night’s sleep and could figure out what he did and didn’t need to know.

“We could give her Baby Tylenol!” Isaac said excitedly as he pulled his covers away and ran to open the top drawer of his dresser where all of his medication was stored. “For her claws!”

“That’s really sweet, honey,” Stiles smiled as he left the bed and picked Isaac up, balancing him on one hip. “But she really just needs a lot of love right now.”

“Just like me after I has an attack?” Isaac asked.

“Just like that,” he assured him before placing a kiss on his son’s forehead.

“Can you wead me a story?” Isaac asked with a yawn as he leaned into his father’s embrace and placed his head on his shoulder.

“Let me guess…the ‘new baby’ book Gampa got you?” Stiles laughed tiredly, knowing how obsessive Isaac usually got with every new book he received. 

“Mmhm,” he hummed in response, Stiles seating them in the rocking chair and pulling _The New Baby_ by Mercer Mayer from the basket beside them. 

“Dad said, “We have a new baby and she’s coming home today,” Stiles read once he opened the book, Isaac’s attention, though wavering due to exhaustion, focused intently on the Little Critters. Five pages later, Isaac’s eyes were closed and a soft, slightly wheezy snore could be heard with each of his exhales. Stiles closed the book with the hand that wasn’t holding Isaac in his lap and let it fall quietly into the book basket, glad he’d been able to turn Isaac’s frustration around and finally get him to relax. Leaning back in the chair, he adjusted Isaac gently and closed his own eyes, hoping that Max could hold out for the few hours left before the sun rose so that they could all get a little bit of sleep. 

x

“Max and I had a rough night,” Derek sighed tiredly as he carried the infant into the kitchen Saturday morning, one hand rubbing her back as she sucked on a pastel bubble teether. 

“The soothing techniques Deaton suggested didn’t help?” Stiles asked, Derek lifting the left side of his shirt up a bit to reveal thin but deep gashes still in the process of healing across his torso. “I guess not,” Stiles added, cringing and breathing in through his teeth as he imagined the sting of his husband’s wounds.

“I don’t know what her biological parents were doing to try and anchor her, so I really struggled. She has an appointment with Deaton for her shots today so hopefully he can give me some new ideas.”

“How long did it take you to anchor?” Stiles asked as he mixed the rice cereal he’d prepared for Max in a small bowl.

“Three months. My parents were both alphas, though, and they had generations-worth of knowledge to help them. I’m starting to sense that Max did have an anchor, since most werebabies usually find one by four months.”

“And now she has to find a new one?”

“Yeah," Derek sighed as he tried to get Max into her high chair, the infant starting to fuss as he went to buckle her in.

“What do most babies anchor to?” Stiles asked as he walked over, stirring some apple pieces into the rice cereal with a small spoon. 

Derek looked up for just a moment, lips taut and eyes full of sadness before he went back to securing Max in her chair.

“Oh,” Stiles said, giving a quick nod of understanding as his husband took Max’s breakfast from him.

“Yeah. I don’t know everything about werebabies and anchoring, but I’m going to guess that that’s going to make this transition a lot harder than we thought,” Derek explained as he pushed the spoon against Max’s tiny lips, a piercing cry escaping as she turned her head away, claws coming out as she began to melt down in her high chair. Derek used his free hand to place her teether by her mouth but she swatted it away, nearly catching Derek’s arm as she did so.

“Max!” Isaac screeched as he covered his ears and squeezed his eyes closed, too preoccupied to notice that Stiles had just placed off-the-griddle banana pancakes in front of him. “No more scweamin’!”

Stiles found himself wishing more than anything that he could gather Max in his arms and rock her through her tears. He swore he could feel her emotional pain in each agonizing wail, her confusion and fear evident in the way her tiny face would scrunch and redden in anguish. He thought back to two days ago, when Derek had tried to run into the office in the afternoon to grab some paperwork to complete at home, Stiles so exasperated toward his failed attempts at calming her that he was on the verge of tears.

“She hasn’t stopped crying since you left!” Stiles had panicked as he bounced Max in his arms, his husband having just walked in the door from a half day of work. They were nearing the end of the two-week mark with their daughter, the school year finally winding down to half-days full of classroom cleanup and playground time. Isaac would be finishing school in a few days, too, the summer nearly upon them. 

“I changed her diaper and put her down to nap. I tried to feed her but she keeps turning her head away from the bottle and she won’t take any puree.” Stiles' cheeks were tinted red, and Derek could detect his rapid heart rate and the slight pull in his lungs. 

“Here,” Derek said as he slowly brought his briefcase to the floor and motioned for Stiles to hand the infant over. Not knowing what else to do, Stiles complied, jaw dropping when she instantly nestled herself beneath Derek’s neck, tears turning into little hiccups as she calmed.

“You’re too cold,” Derek whispered as he cradled her head with his hand to keep her against him, other arm supporting her weight from below.

“What?”

“She was craving warmth.”

“I have her in a sleeper! In June! How could she be-”

“She needs more than the average infant.” 

“But,” Stiles started, confused. “ _How? Did you?_ ”

“You’re forgetting that I grew up in a house with three-generations-worth of werewolves.”

“You could barely hold Isaac’s hand when we first adopted him because you were so nervous and now you’re telling me you have experience with babies?”

“Werebabies, yeah,” Derek stated nonchalantly.

“You literally made this infant comatose just by holding her,” Stiles pointed out, shock evident in his voice.

“I don’t know…I guess it’s just instinct or something,” Derek shrugged.

Stiles opened his mouth to speak but found that he had no words. Instead, he watched as Derek rocked from foot to foot with Max against his suited chest, his head craned downwards so that it was closer to her. She sighed in content, a sudden silence filling the house for the first time since Derek had left around noon.

Stiles wasn’t sure why, but suddenly, he felt like crying. Like letting out just a few tears and crawling on to the couch with a blanket, the TV static in the background so that he could finally get some sleep. Exhaustion and frustration aside, though, something else was brewing within Stiles that afternoon. Something that forced him to look away from their daughter happily coiled against his husband and lock his jaw to keep the tears from coming.

“You should take some medicine. I can hear your wheezing,” Derek finally said as he lifted his head.

“I’m fine,” Stiles assured his husband, waving a hand as he turned and went for the basement to get started on laundry.

“I’ll set up a treatment for you.”

Stiles was already halfway down the stairs, though, the padding of his feet on each wooden board signaling not that he hadn’t heard Derek’s remark, but that he was ignoring it. With a heavy sigh, Derek turned and trudged up the stairs with Max, unwilling to argue with Stiles because he, too, was just too damn exhausted.

"Max!" Isaac yelled over the commotion in the kitchen, pulling Stiles' attention back into the present. "No more! Stop!"

“She’s crying because she’s in a lot of pain, Isaac,” Stiles explained softly as he lifted the child into his arms to bring him upstairs to change and escape the infant’s tantrum; the more he listened to her cries, the more he wished he could soothe her like he'd been able to for Isaac in the beginning.

“But if no one hurted her why’s she in pain?” he asked as they reached the top, one hand going for his mouth as he tried to think through what was happening.

“Max is upset because she doesn’t know where her mommy and daddy went and she misses them.”

“Papa didn’t telled her that they went to heaven?”

“He did, baby. Many times. But Max is too little to understand. That’s why she’s always so sad." Stiles entered Isaac's room and let him down before rummaging through the laundry basket on the rocking chair for clean clothes. "She’s crying out for them because she's looking for them.”

Isaac looked at Stiles for a moment before adding, “Max has a missing piece, too?"

"Yes. And she needs us to help her through it, which is why Papa and I need you to be the best big brother that you can be, okay?"

"Like Gampa said?" Isaac asked, thinking back to their conversation last week when he'd brought over the Little Critter's book _The New Baby_. "'Cause she needs someone to help keep her safe and show her new things?"

"Yes, just like that," Stiles stated with a smile, picking out socks, a pair of shorts, and Isaac's favorite wolf t-shirt, a late birthday gift from Uncle Scott and Aunt Allison. 

"But I'm not like Max and Papa," Isaac frowned before attempting to pull his pajama shirt up and over his head.

"You don't have to be a wolf to be strong, Isaac. Remember when you were sick a few weeks ago, when you wanted to help Papa fix the deck?"

"You tolded me I was strong 'cause I'm growin' up and getting braver," the four-year-old smiled as Stiles helped him pull the wolf shirt down over his head, the socks in his hands falling to the floor.

"Exactly, which means you're the perfect protector for Max."

"What's a producter?" Isaac asked as he pushed his arms through the holes.

"Protector," Stiles corrected with a small laugh. "It's a person who keeps people safe from bad guys and bad things in the world."

"Are you a protector?"

"Yes, baby. Papa and Gampa are, too, because we all look out for each other."

"Gampa's a policeman, though," Isaac thought for a moment as he sat down to put on the shorts that Stiles had handed him. "He says it's his job makin' people safe."

"That's true, it is his job. But he also does it because he wants to. Gampa has a big heart, just like you and Papa."

"But not Max," Isaac stated definitively as he wiggled into his shorts. "'Cause she's too little."

"Of course she has a heart,” Stiles countered, though he was careful to keep his tone light. “Max can feel and sense a lot of things, Ize.”

“Onwy ‘cause she’s a wolf.”

“No, she can sense love because she’s a person, honey,” he corrected. “Just like Papa. One day Max is going to be a big girl, just like you’re a big boy, and she’s still going to need you just like she does right now.”

Stiles bent down to pick up the pair of socks that had slipped from his hand, his head suddenly spinning, one hand steadying his weight on the carpet as he sunk into a sitting position. He took a slow breath and then another, his heart racing in his chest.

"Daddy?"

"I'm okay, baby," he lied as he tried to take deeper, even breaths to quell the dizziness that was keeping him from getting up. He could feel his heart pounding even more quickly than before, the throbbing extending to his hands and feet. Despite the control he did have over his now labored breathing, the woozy feeling continued to grow worse, rushing through him as waves of hot and cold, keeping him from being able to stand.

"You're wheezin'," Isaac said, kneeling beside Stiles, one hand falling onto his shoulder. "Do you need your 'haler?"

Stiles shook his head and closed his eyes, willing the feeling to pass so that he could finish getting Isaac ready for the day. 

"Papa!" Isaac called out, the words reaching Stiles in a muffled tone. He tried to protest, but he couldn't. He knew he was breathing, but somehow the air just wasn't reaching his lungs. The arm supporting his weight began to feel numb, finally caving as Isaac continued to yell for Derek; Stiles gripped the coarse carpeting in his hand to keep his elbow locked and arm steady.

"You're white as a ghost," he heard Derek remark worriedly sometime later, Stiles unsure if it had been seconds or minutes since Isaac hard first started yelling. He could feel the coolness of a damp washcloth against the back of his neck and one of Derek's strong hands holding him upright. In opening his eyes, he saw that he was still in Isaac's room, sitting up on the pale blue carpet, his breaths coming in short, painful pants.

"Just got a little...dizzy," Stiles tried, words garbled as he leaned his head and body against a kneeling Derek.

"Your heart sounds like it's ready to beat straight out of your chest."

"I gotted Daddy's red 'haler," Isaac explained proudly, his own breaths hurried from having run to find it.

"Don't need it," Stiles said, shaking his head, his right hand flat on his chest as if he were about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; Derek didn't need super-senses to know that his husband's heart had palpitated at least twice in the last minute or so. "I'm okay. No need for dramatics."

But Derek could sense the breathlessness in his husband's voice, could feel the way his heartbeat was irregular if he listened closely enough. His worried eyes met with Stiles', and for the first time, he read his mind directly: _Don't scare Ize._

"Where's Max?"

"In her bouncer. Ize, can you be the best big brother ever and go check on her? Maybe read her a book or put on a movie?"

The four-year-old handed the inhaler over to his father with a smile and hurried down the stairs, excited to participate in some big brother activities.

"I'm okay, really," Stiles promised as he put his weight on his knees, and then his feet, Derek helping him rise from the carpet. "Just haven't eaten yet. Didn't sleep much."

"Something tells me that that isn't the whole story," Derek said, his hand going for Stiles' against his chest.

"I don't want to argue about this," Stiles said quietly, sadness in his voice as he pulled his hand, and Derek's, away from his heart.

For a moment, Derek thought that his husband might start crying, his skin still stark-white in color, eyes drooping with exhaustion, the circles beneath them deep and dark. He supported most of Stiles' weight as he helped him over to Isaac's bed to sit down, his ragged exhales a sign that he was still just as dizzy as he'd been on the carpet.

"Will you be okay for a minute while I go and grab a juice box?" Derek asked, afraid to move the conversation in its usual direction. Stiles just closed his eyes and nodded, lips parting as he took in slow, even breaths. Derek sighed and took a few steps toward the hall, stopping in the doorway and turning to Stiles for just a brief moment. "This has happened, before, hasn't it?" he whispered, unsure if he wanted to know the answer; he could still hear his husband's heart working hard.

Stiles nodded again and held up two fingers, his eyes opening but focusing downward at the floor. He rubbed the left side of his chest again and took one deep breath, almost as if he was doing it to rid himself of an uncomfortable sensation rather than fix the feeling of air hunger. To that, Derek just bit his bottom lip and gave a short nod before going to the kitchen for the juice box he'd promised.

x

That Monday night, Isaac’s tiny hands wrapped around the bars of Max’s wooden crib as he peeked in, heels rising and weight shifting to the balls of his feet so that he could get closer to her. “Hi, Maxy,” he whispered with a smile, the baby’s whimpering lessening at his words. “Don’t cry,” he soothed, one hand reaching in to take hers. “It’s otay. I don’t have a mama anymore either, but Daddy and Papa and Gampa are the bestest family ever.” 

Stiles kept his head on the pillow and smiled to himself as he listened to Isaac’s gentle voice come through the baby monitor, wanting to wake Derek so that he could hear, but also knowing he needed the sleep.

Derek, who had been up for over thirty hours straight until he flopped onto the bed less than four hours ago, still in dress pants and a collared shirt. He’d managed to get Max into an uninterrupted four hours of sleep, give her two feedings, spend six hours in the office, and make it home in time to get her down for what was now a record-breaking five hours. To Stiles, that made him seem more superhuman than anything else.

And the way he handled her? It was adorable, if that was even a word he could use to describe it. Just watching her curl against him, itty bitty fingers clawing at his shirt for comfort, was enough to melt Stiles’ heart. Well, until the jealousy flooded in and he couldn't get the thought that maybe he'd never have that kind of relationship with Max out of his head.

It had been so much easier with Isaac in the beginning, the toddler so sick that all Stiles could do to comfort him in the nights before their appointment with Dr. Marmon was cradle his little body semi-upright to help him breathe better. And then there'd been the night when they'd had to pull the nebulizer out and Derek had been too scared, too unknowledgeable, to help. Boy, how things had changed in the last ten months. Isaac's asthma was somewhat under control now, thankfully, all because they'd given in and let the new allergist Derek had found, Dr. Oslo, do extensive bloodwork and pulmonary function tests. The child had actually cooperated for the PFTs in the lab, but Stiles knew from the bloodwork experience that the first round of allergy shots that were to come in the next week would probably prove to be a very, very different story. Needles, it seemed, were one thing that Isaac just couldn't get completely over. (Not that he blamed him.)

"Daddy and Papa has missing pieces, too," Isaac whispered, Max letting out little coos instead of her usual sobs. "Just like us. So they know how it feels when we're sad 'cause we want Mama. Oh, and Aunt Lyddie taked me to my Mother's Day Tea at school so I wasn't all alone. She's really nice. Daddy says she's my Godmother, which means she's one of my protectors, just like I'm your protector. Maybe she can be your Godmother, too."

For the first night in nearly three weeks, Stiles realized, the house was a wonderful kind of quiet, a much needed peace finally flowing through it. Isaac's soft words and Max's little gurgles continued to come through the monitor like a lullaby, the four-year-old's stories about Papa's Camaro and the police doggies forcing Stiles to grin as he closed his eyes and sunk deep into his pillow.


	3. Stubborn Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Next chapter is up! Thanks again to Casey for all of her critiques/input on this chapter. I have been super sick, and between still trying to work and handle life, I have had almost no time to do anything. But never fear! The next chapter is half-written and future chapters are starting to grow. Thank you for YOUR continued support, as you comments and favorites/subscriptions really make me feel a lot better. :) Writing is my passion and I am so glad that I get to share it with all of you. <3
> 
> Keep the wonderful comments coming! I promise I will respond when I get a minute!

“She still won’t eat much. She’s not sleeping through the night,” Derek sighed as he rubbed his face in the middle of Deaton’s exam room, exhaustion fueling his anxiety about Max. In the absence of her father’s attention, she began to whimper from her place on the table, her cries piercing as she pulled away from Deaton’s third attempt to distract her with her pacifier. “I’m just…really worried,” Derek continued, taking the soother from the veterinarian and coaxing it into the infant’s mouth after a brief struggle. “I just want her to be healthy, you know?”

“Max is grieving, Derek,” Deaton explained as he listened to the baby’s heartbeat while she sat on his exam table in just her diaper. “She’s been thrown into a new environment with an alpha and pack she doesn’t know. Her senses are on high alert because she’s looking for her biological parents. We talked about this the last time.” 

The vet didn’t have to say another word for Derek to remember the tangle of emotions that had flooded him after the fire. Sometimes he wondered if he was still stuck in the mode that Max was in, wishing that his parents would just appear and extinguish the anxiety that he knew had settled in his bones. He watched as Deaton performed a few development tests, his head swimming with the fear that his baby girl would struggle with everything he had. That it would follow her for the rest of her life and leave her angry and confused and…

“She _is_ healthy, Derek,” Deaton finally smiled, letting Max, who was sitting up unsupported, curl her tiny hand around his pointer finger, the baby bringing it to her mouth despite the pacifier there. “She’s starting to make meaningful sounds, has strong reflexes. I’d say she’s already passed most of her six-month milestones even though she’s barely five months.” 

“That’s just a wolf thing, though,” he sighed, unconvinced. “She still cries through the night even when there isn’t a full moon. She pushes food away; I don’t think she’s eaten a full meal since we brought her home nearly three weeks ago.” 

“Does she respond to you and Stiles holding her?” 

“She thrashes in my arms for the most part. And she won’t really let Stiles hold her…”

“Isaac?” 

“She likes the sound of his voice, especially at night, but it doesn’t always calm her down.” 

“Ah. She hasn’t attached to your pack yet,” Deaton said knowingly, pulling his finger gently from Max before heading over to the sink to wash his hands. “She will once she makes the connection that you’re her guardians now.” 

“Is there a timeframe on that?” Derek asked impatiently. “Like the baby milestones?” 

Deaton gave a small smile as he faced Derek and dried his hands with a paper towel. “It will come with time, just like I said when we did her shots last week.” 

“But how much time?” Derek asked, growing edgy. He had come looking for answers, wanted more than anything for the baby girl on the table in front of him to want him as much as he wanted her. “The longer she stays unattached, the less effective hiding her scent from the rival pack will be. You know, more than anyone, that Beacon Hills isn’t exactly the best place for her to be right now.” 

“Pull that chair over and take a seat,” Deaton advised him, pointing to a metal folding one in a nearby corner. Derek complied, sitting himself down as the vet brought Max over. “Place her under your shirt and let her head poke out of the V-neck.” 

“Okay?” he asked as he took Max from Deaton and followed his instructions, not really sure what this was really about. 

“You and Stiles need to bond with her, Derek. That’s how she’s going to attach.” 

“How is this bonding?” 

“Max can sense that from across the room, she doesn’t need-”

“Pretend that she’s Isaac,” he instructed softly, a reassuring smile on his face once again. “That she isn’t a werewolf who is ahead of all of her human milestones. Throw all of your assumptions about her out the door. Imagine…imagine that she is a newborn, and that you and Stiles are her proud fathers meeting her for the very first time.” 

Derek repeated Deaton’s advice later that night as Max screamed into the darkness, face red and hands in fists as he nestled her beneath his shirt and rubbed her back from outside of it. Instantly, she calmed, one ear pressed against his chest, each muscle in her tiny face slowly relaxing as if the mere closeness of his heartbeat was what she’d really needed all along. 

x

“Can I come in?” Derek asked as he knocked on the locked bathroom door the next morning. “I just need to brush my teeth.” He could hear the shower running, but there was no answer or movement behind the door. “Stiles!” he shouted so that his husband could hear over the water, knowing that they were at least twenty minutes off of their usual schedule from sleeping in, which was going to make them both late for work. “I’m coming in!” he finally announced, opening the door to reveal his husband slumped against the wall wrapped in a towel, his lungs pulling in deep gasps of air. 

Stiles wheezed with every breath, his eyes closed tightly, pale, thin body shivering despite the excessive amount of heat and steam in the room. 

“I’m gonna grab your inhaler,” Derek promised, half out the door in a panic before he heard a small _no_.

“S’not…my asthma,” Stiles said, body weak as he slid down the wall a bit further. “M’dizzy…cold…”

“Alright, just relax,” Derek soothed, scooping his husband up into his arms and carrying him over to their bed. He grabbed the blanket from the grey armchair in the corner and covered Stiles with it, the white in his husband’s skin apparent against the dark blue fleece. 

“You’re really clammy,” he said as he tucked his husband in. Smoothing his hair out of his face, he checked him over, unable to find a cause for the pain radiating from Stiles’ body. “Did you eat today? Maybe you’re having a low blood sugar or something.” 

“Everything’s…blurry,” Stiles mumbled, his breaths still quick and ragged. 

“I’ll be right back with some orange juice, okay?” 

Stiles could barely nod. He let out a small whimper as he continued to shake beneath the blanket, only looking up when he saw that Derek had returned holding one of Isaac’s Batman cups with a straw in it. He sat on the edge of the bed and held it up to Stiles’ mouth so that he could sip. 

“My ears’r ringing,” he mumbled after dragging in a quarter of the liquid and letting the straw go. 

“It’ll go away if you keep drinking,” Derek promised as he pushed the straw back into his husband’s mouth. 

“Everything hurts,” he groaned when he finished the juice. 

“This better not be the start of the flu,” Derek said, placing the glass on the nightstand before placing his palm on Stiles’ forehead. “No fever. How’s your breathing?” 

“S-same as always,” Stiles shivered, pulling the blanket closer to him so that it moved up his leg to reveal a giant purple bruise on his shin. 

“Babe,” Derek said as he ran his fingers around the edge of it. “How’d you manage that?” 

“I was cleaning and tripped over a chair leg at work,” Stiles stated quickly, pulling his leg in so that it was safe from sight beneath the blanket. 

“That must have been some chair,” Derek chuckled, trying to make light of the situation now that Stiles seemed to be a little bit more with it. But his husband just pulled his legs closer to his chest beneath the blanket and closed his eyes in response, Derek suddenly realizing he’d hit a nerve, one that he hadn’t known existed until that very moment. 

x

“Are we just going to ignore the fact that you nearly passed out this morning in the bathroom?” Derek asked once the two were in the kitchen a half hour later, Isaac eating his breakfast on the couch in the living room while Max sat in her bouncer watching TV. 

“It was probably just the heat from the shower,” Stiles shrugged as he lifted a second glass of orange juice and started chugging. 

“I suppose your wheezing was, too?” Derek asked, raising an eyebrow. “And what about the other day? In Isaac’s room?” 

“I told you that it wasn’t my asthma,” Stiles snapped, suddenly annoyed that Derek was refusing to drop it. 

“You should call in today,” he advised his husband while stirring sugar into his coffee, the spoon clanging against the inside of the cup. “Make a doctor’s appointment.” 

“Yeah, not happening.” 

“Have you taken any Adderall lately?” Derek asked softly now that he knew Stiles was getting irritated; he wondered if starting it up again had caused the dizziness and, somehow, the gigantic bruise covering his left shin. 

“What’s it matter?” Stiles asked bluntly. 

“Look, I’m just trying to help you,” Derek defended before pouring the rest of the coffee from the pot into a travel mug for his husband. He looked over toward the living room for a moment, glad that Isaac seemed to be too engrossed in his TV show to notice that they were arguing. “That, and I can’t take care of the kids and you by myself if you’re getting sick!” 

“I had a low blood sugar and now you’re hovering over me like you do with Ize, which you know I hate, so I don’t know why-”

“If I hadn’t been on my way to brush my teeth-” Derek interrupted angrily as he returned the milk to the refrigerator. 

“Why can’t you just leave it alone?!” Stiles groaned, the phrase echoing across the house as he turned his face away from Derek’s and busied himself with clearing the counter of dirty plates. He was surprised he’d reacted as he had and bit his lip to keep anything else from coming out while he added to the pile of dishes in the sink. Suddenly, his lungs grew tight, forcing him to stifle one cough and then another until he was caught in a fit that he couldn’t break away from. Even as Derek slid his inhaler over, Stiles tossed him a nasty look, angry that he couldn’t shake the general malaise residing in every cell of his body. 

“Do you need anything else?” Derek asked when the coughing abated, and even though Stiles knew he just wanted to help, his toxic mood was taking over. 

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, pocketing his inhaler as his wheeze slowly began to die down. 

“You don’t really seem-”

“Can you just lay off for one fucking minute?!” Stiles screamed, face red as the words fell from his mouth. The comment had taken all of his available air and more, but he’d been able to play it off by looking away again as Max began wailing in the living room, her screams piercing as she fought to get out of her bouncer. Derek hurried toward the chaos while Stiles fought to catch his breath. 

“Make her stop!” Isaac yelled out over her howling, his hands covering his ears from his place on the couch. 

“Hey, baby girl,” Derek soothed as he lifted her and set her on his hip. “It’s okay. Shh. Daddy’s fine.” 

“What’s wrong with Daddy?” Isaac asked worriedly, hands falling from his ears as he looked up at Derek and Max. 

“Nothing,” Stiles stated as he entered the room, hating the way his son was looking at him with wide, nervous eyes. “Go find your shoes, Ize.” 

“But Doc McStuffins isn’t over and-”

“Shoes. Now.” 

“I wanna finish Doc McStuffins!” 

“If you don’t get your shoes on right now, we’re not going to see the fireworks in New York when we visit Uncle Scott,” Stiles warned, picking up the plate from the coffee table with Isaac’s half-eaten breakfast waffle. The four year old was up and out of the room without a word in seconds, though Derek was sure he’d heard a sniffle or two. 

“That was a little harsh,” Derek retorted as he rubbed a calming Max’s back and followed Stiles into the kitchen. 

“I have to get to work early.” It wasn’t a lie, really. There were copies to be made and library books to be checked out. That, and Stiles wasn’t sure he could stand being at home for another second if Derek was going to be attuned to every breath he took. 

“We’re not having another morning from hell just because you’re mad at the world,” Derek said through gritted teeth to Stiles as he went to follow Isaac down the hall. 

Stiles didn’t need to be told that, and the fact that Derek had thought it necessary had finally pushed him over the edge. Without so much as a second thought, he grabbed his coffee cup and messenger bag and left, slamming the door with his free hand to make a statement, leaving Derek to get Isaac off to school and Max to John’s all on his own. 

x

At first, all that Isaac noticed were the small, white tufts of stuffing littered across the living room carpet, his eyes widening and juice cup falling from his hand to the floor when he caught sight of Max near the couch with her fangs and claws out, her head shaking as she ripped away at his grey wolf. 

“Papa!” he screamed as if he were physically in pain, lunging at Max to fight for Balto. “Daddy! She has Balto! She _has him_!”

By the time both fathers arrived, Isaac was crumpled and sobbing on the carpet, a nearly shredded Balto in one arm, the other bleeding from a set of small puncture wounds. Max was screaming, her teeth and claws fully out as she clutched at a half-destroyed sofa pillow. “S-she…s-she broke him!” Isaac screamed, his breaths hitching, a slight wheeze starting as he added, “And she bit me!” 

“Alright,” Stiles soothed, trying to lift a hysterical Isaac from the carpet while Derek handled a furious Max, his own claws and teeth coming out as he sought to get her to regulate herself. “Let’s put Balto down-”

“No!” he cried, refusing to let the wolf go, stuffing peeking out from various rips across his body. “He n-needs Dr. Deaton!” Isaac wheezed, his shoulders hunching as he fought to catch his breath and cry at the same time. “Balto! Oh, Balto!” 

“Okay, okay,” Stiles tried, the four-year-old heavier than he remembered him being as he cried his arms. Still, he carried him to the second floor to give him some distance from Max, finally setting him down on the toilet seat so that he could get a good look at the bite that was continuing to bleed on his arm. 

“He needs med’cine!” Isaac sobbed, cradling Balto with his non-injured arm, his eyes glazed with tears and pain as he looked up at Stiles. “He can’t breathe! Where’s…where’s his ‘haler?!” 

Stiles couldn’t help but suddenly feel overwhelmed by what should have been a small, manageable incident, his head spinning as Isaac carried on. He’d spent the better part of his afternoon finalizing report cards and writing up suggestions for a few of his students’ IEP updates, his eyes red and tired from sitting at the computer for so many straight hours after working a half-day. He fought the urge to roll his eyes and tell Isaac that Balto was just a stuffed animal that didn’t have a beating heart or feelings, that he and Papa knew he’d just been using the wolf to help him talk about his own asthma when he’d first come home. That it was time to grow up and let the whole thing go. 

But he’d stopped himself, thankfully, hating that he’d even had to. It wasn’t like him to think like that, to be so exhausted that he couldn’t talk to Isaac in a way that was mindful of his emotional needs. He also hated that the one person he needed, the _one person_ who could help him right his frame of mind right now, was downstairs tending to the cause of the current situation. This one he’d have to handle all on his own. 

He closed his eyes for a split second and took a calming breath, his mind focused on managing a toddler on the verge of an asthma attack with a non-threatening-but-still-bleeding werewolf bite and the quickly deteriorating stuffed wolf in his arms who, if he didn’t make it, would be the trauma of all traumas that could exist in Isaac’s little world. 

“Ize, honey,” he finally cooed, lowering himself to the sniffly, wheezy child panicking in front of him. “First I have to look at your bite and then I promise I’ll take great care of Balto, okay?” 

“B-but he can’t breathe! He can’t!” Isaac insisted, his own breathing choppy and erratic, the congestion building in his nose audible as he tightened his grip on Balto. 

“Can I please look at your arm first?” 

“What if he dies?!” Isaac asked, his eyes so wide that Stiles wondered, for a brief moment, if it was out of the child’s realization or the fact that he was suddenly having a difficult time finding a full breath. 

“I promise that Balto isn’t going to die,” he assured his son as he pulled his inhaler and spacer from the drawer beside them, shaking the canister and connecting the devices together. 

“Balto first,” Isaac insisted, watching carefully as Stiles nodded and positioned the mask against the wolf’s face. He pressed down on the canister before doing the same for Isaac, the child taking the fullest breaths that he could of the medication. 

“We might have to take a trip to Dr. Deaton, Ize,” Stiles sighed as he got his first real glimpse of what he now realized was more of a set of gashes than tiny bites in his son’s arm. 

“W-will he take care of Balto?” he asked softly, his concern for the stuffed wolf still going strong. “Can he give him stitches?” 

“He can come along, but he’s going to have to look at your arm first, okay?” Stiles explained, pulling a bundle of gauze from the cabinet and unraveling it. 

“But remember what happened to Pooh Bear?!” Isaac’s wheeze began to die down, Stiles suddenly thankful that the new combination of the daily preventative medications and use of the rescue inhaler was working quickly; he let out a small sigh of relief as he gently wrapped a good four inches of Isaac’s wounded arm in the gauze. 

“Pooh was already losing some of his stuffing,” Stiles reminded Isaac. “And you were the one who gave him to Max in the middle of the night to try and calm her down...” 

“I didn’t think she’d eat him!” he sniffled. 

“We can stitch him up, baby,” Stiles promised as he finished off the gauze and wrapped the end piece so that it was secure, his mood changing for the better now that Isaac was breathing perfectly fine. Max’s screeching had ceased, the house quiet again as he lifted his son into his arms and brought him back downstairs. 

“Doctor?” Derek asked as he gave a concerned nod toward Isaac’s arm once he finally got a good look, Max half-asleep under his shirt, her head peeking out through the V-neck as he rocked her back and forth. 

“She made a mark all right,” Stiles sighed, grabbing his cell phone and keys from the side table. “You don’t think he’ll need a tetanus shot, do you?” he asked, realizing too late that the word ‘shot’ was not the best choice, especially since the immunotherapy they’d started him on the week before had prompted a complete and utter meltdown in Dr. Oslo’s office. 

“Shot?!” Isaac asked, suddenly on alert in his daddy’s arms. “No!” he cried, tears springing back to life. “No!” 

“Shh, I bet you don’t need one, Ize,” Derek assured him. “Max had all of her baby shots, so you should be fine.” 

“She ate Balto and now he’s hurt!” he continued, his sobs and sorrows mixing and becoming a cloud that he could not escape from. “We have to take him to the doctor ‘cause he haded a attack and needed his ‘haler and he…he needs stitches!” 

“I had to give them the albuterol,” Stiles explained, hoping Derek would understand the subtext of his next sentence. “Balto was being a difficult patient.” 

“We can’t let Balto die!” Isaac screamed, the pitch waking Max and causing her to fuss. 

“He’s not going to die, baby,” Stiles assured him, unlocking the front door and whisking him outside to give Derek a moment to coax Max into her car seat. Isaac’s tears continued to fall, his face splotchy and eyes red, Balto in shreds in his free arm, little circles of blood showing through the white gauze wrapped around his bites. “I bet we’ll be able to get him fixed up just in time for your play date with Erica tomorrow,” he explained, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could even realize what he was promising. 

“Promise?” he sniffled, calming down as Stiles buckled him in carefully so as not to hit his son’s hurt arm. 

“I promise, even if I have to stay up all night putting him back together, okay?” 

Isaac nodded as Derek approached the car with Max in her seat, her fussing reduced to small coos and murmurs. Stiles suddenly felt his head spinning again and blinked his eyes a few times to rid himself of the feeling. He tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs felt full and tired, so he managed a small sigh instead, fumbling with the keys as he went to get into the driver’s seat. 

“I’ll drive,” Derek offered quietly before Stiles could even open the door, the keys leaving his hands as his husband pulled at the lanyard. 


	4. We Break Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: 
> 
> So here’s the deal. There is a lot happening in my life right now. I’ve been super ill and just started a new teaching job. This story is my baby, along with an original fiction/screenplay I’ve been working on, so I will still be working on it but the updates might be somewhat slower. I have at least another entire chapter written that just needs to sit for a bit before I let it out into the world. I've been getting your reviews and messages. I've been doing my best. I promise that I have! I just am overloaded at the moment. Casey, of course, has been doing a wonderful job editing/revising for me!
> 
> Keep leaving your wonderful reviews/messages/kudos. I take each and every one to heart! Thank you!

The living room carpet of the Stilinski-Hale house was littered with various Disney figurines, a slew of Matchbox cars and ramps, and a plastic Little Tikes pirate ship. Isaac and Erica were busy staging an adventure, they’d told Derek as he settled Max in her bouncer so that he could start dinner for the kids, in which Olaf the snowman from _Frozen_ was trying to escape a desert island with the help of Peter Pan. 

“You’ll never catch me!” Erica announced as she stood up and lifted Olaf in the air. 

“Get back here!” Isaac yelled playfully, Captain Hook in one hand, Peter Pan in the other. “I already gots your friend!”

“Try!” she instigated with a laugh, Isaac running after her as she circled the room, first darting for the hallway before heading back toward the couch. “I may be made of snow, but I’m super strong!” 

Max began to fuss at their activeness, tears and fists appearing. Erica was the first to dash over, Olaf falling to the floor as she crouched beside the bouncer. 

“No!” Isaac warned. “She bites!” He lifted his bandaged arm from the day before as proof. “And she eated Pooh Bear and Balto!” 

“But she’s crying,” Erica argued, picking up a plastic ring from the tray of the bouncer and offering it to Max. “Don’t you want her to stop?” 

Isaac grabbed Erica’s arm and pulled it away before Max, who wasn’t even interested in the toy, could take it. “She has fangs and claws!” 

“Why do you always say that?!” she grumbled as she yanked her arm back from Isaac’s grip, annoyed that he was bringing it up again. “She’s a baby! She doesn’t-”

“She _does_ though!” 

“I don’t see any fangs or claws,” Erica touted, her hands on her hips as she stood in front of a melting-down Max. “She’s probably just sad because she wants to play with us!” 

Isaac shook his head. “Max hates loud noises. I think we scared her.” 

“Then we can be quieter,” she explained softly, Max settling now that the two weren’t running or yelling. “See? She isn’t screaming anymore.” 

“Daddy and Papa says I’m not allowed to give Max my toys because she could choke on the pieces. And she eated Balto yesterday, so I don’t want her to touch any of my toys. She doesn’t even know how to play, anyway. All she does is cry and bite!” 

“That’s because babies play different than big kids,” Erica sighed, ignoring the last bit of Isaac’s rant, her arms falling to her sides as she strode over to the toy bin to pick up a set of plastic keys for teething. “Watch,” she instructed, Max’s attention already on the blonde haired Kindergartener with the soft voice instead of her tears. Kneeling in front of the bouncer, she wiggled the keys, the baby’s eyes lighting up as she reached out with both hands to grasp it. Erica let her take them, her hands moving over her eyes for a moment before she opened them and said, “Peek a boo!” 

Max giggled, her hand shaking the keys over the side of the bouncer. Erica repeated the motion, adding in, “Where’d Erica go? There she is!” 

Isaac inched closer, Hook and Peter Pan falling from his grasp, one hand absentmindedly covering his bandage. “Can I try?” he whispered. 

Erica nodded and Isaac kneeled beside her, their elbows touching as they both began to play Peek a Boo with Max. The infant bounced happily in her seat as the two older friends took turns covering their eyes. 

Derek had just put a few slices of frozen pizza into the oven when he realized that Isaac and Erica’s voices couldn’t be heard in the living room. Despite the fact that his senses weren’t firing, he peeked in out of general worry, eyes finally falling on the three children playing together. Max was giggling and active, Isaac right beside her as though he’d forgotten yesterday’s trauma. And Erica was saying, “I told you so!” as she watched Isaac jingle Max’s keys in the air again, the infant grabbing for them with a coo, her claws nowhere to be found. 

He took a deep breath, letting himself enjoy the children’s laughter for just a moment more before Stiles came through the front door, his bag dropping to the tile and keys sliding across the table beside the stairs while he kicked off his shoes. Derek watched as Isaac ran over and threw his arms around his daddy’s legs, the tired curve of Stiles’ smiling lips just enough to let him know how hard he was trying to stay awake. 

“I’m gonna lay down for 20 minutes or so. Let me know when the kids are done with dinner so I can drop Erica off,” Stiles announced, a yawn escaping as he started up the stairs. Derek had nodded from across the living room, but he knew that he was going to let his husband sleep for at least an hour. He could take Erica home and get the kids ready for bed and John’s house by himself. All they’d have to do is drop the kids off before dinner and they’d be golden. 

That didn’t stop the pit of worry in Derek’s stomach as he handed Erica’s car seat over to her father, though, or as he put gas in the car while Isaac and Max watched _Frozen_ from the back seat. He knew there was something going on with Stiles, something that his husband was refusing to acknowledge and face. The fainting. The bruises. The trouble breathing. His mind kept going to that _one, dark_ place, the same one Stiles had described that night in college when he’d had too much tequila and had mumbled through his tears over the phone about missing his mother. 

Derek decided that he’d bring it up after dinner as he swung into their driveway. It would be discussed, he promised himself as he unlatched Max’s seat from it’s holder, when Stiles finally admitted that he was too tired for the movies and they’d ended up back at home on the couch with a movie from Redbox. He anticipated his husband’s anger, the yelling that the children thankfully wouldn’t hear, the lies that Derek could predict. _I told you I was fine! Look, the bruises went away. I haven’t even needed my inhaler all day! You think I’m the one that’s crazy?!_

In a moment of panic, just before waking Stiles up, Derek searched their health insurance claims online for his husband’s last round of bloodwork. The records showed that it had been nearly a year and a half since Stiles had gone to the doctor for routine labs; how long ago had his _it’s time for your yearly physical_ card appeared in the mail? 

His senses could tell that something was off, just like they’d been able to sense what he later found out was asthma all of those years. His gift wasn’t fine-tuned enough, though, which was why he’d mistaken the wheezing for anxiety. It was also the main reason it had been so difficult to help Isaac when he’d first come home. It pained him to know that he could tell when a member of his pack was ill but couldn’t stop the sickness at its source. All he could offer was his hand over theirs and brief moments of relief. It never felt like enough. 

Whatever was to come in the next few hours, whether it be slammed doors, name-calling, or an empty bed for the night, Derek knew it had to be done. Knew that he’d be there for Stiles even if they had to go, unwillingly, to that _one, dark_ place together. It was the single unspoken thought they’d had in a while, and it was consuming them both from the inside out. 

“God, why won’t you let this go?!” he knew Stiles would ask when he grew too tired to continue arguing. 

“Because I know that something isn’t right and I love you too much to see you ignore it,” he’d say with the straightest face he could, the tears welling in his eyes. “And we’re in this together, no matter what. Just like we promised each other. As a family. As a _pack_.”

x

“What do you think?" Derek asked two hours later, looking over to his husband as he slowed the car at a red light. They'd just left Isaac and Max with John for the night with the hope that they could celebrate the start of summer vacation. After Father’s Day that weekend, a trip to New York to visit Scott and Allison was on their calendar for the Fourth of July. Derek had already double-checked with his boss about the time off and pulled their suitcases out. 

"Hmm?" Stiles lifted his gaze from the passenger window, eyes blinking as he pulled himself out of the thoughts he'd been lost in. 

"I asked if you wanted Chinese or Italian." 

"You pick," Stiles offered, too tired to even think about food choices. Between packing up his classroom and moving to the second floor, finalizing grades and report cards, planning and executing field day, and dealing with their new normal that was Max, his mind had had no opportunity to slow down for at least three weeks. And now that he was able to officially relax, he found that his mind just _wouldn't_ , that it seemed to be stuck flashing thoughts and images like an annoying ticker. 

"You're distracted," Derek commented, the light turning green. He hit the gas and slowly accelerated them forward. 

"Just tired, actually." Stiles sighed as he rubbed his face to try and wake himself up. 

"Why don’t we just go home and watch a movie?" Derek offered in reference to their dinner and movie plans. 

“If we go home I’ll just fall asleep,” he mumbled. 

“I know I don’t normally say things like this, but you need to cheer up. Be happy that school’s out. Celebrate the good news you got today.” 

“They only moved me to third grade because Mrs. Fischer is retiring.” 

“But you’ll have some of your old students,” Derek reminded him. “And you’re done with the PTA. That has to count for something, right?” 

“I had to move all of my shit to the second floor _by myself_ , Derek, most of which is still in boxes and isn’t even on grade-level. I now have to spend my entire summer re-planning for the next school year using a completely different scope and sequence curriculum-wise. Plus, my students will be taking Common Core assessments for the first time next May and their scores will affect my evaluation as a teacher. I don’t know how anyone could be excited about any of that!” 

“I thought you loved teaching?” Derek reasoned. 

“I think I’m just too exhausted to love teaching right now.” Stiles had his thumbs pushing his eyelids closed to keep his tears back, lips pursed together tightly as his chest began to heave. 

"Hey, babe," Derek said softly, concerned, moving his eyes quickly between the road and his husband. "It’s okay to be overwhelmed. You did a lot this year.” 

Still, the tears began to slide down his cheeks, his airways tightening just enough to make his already strained breathing noticeably worse. It had been such a stressful week, what with finding out he’d be keeping his job but moving grades, discovering that Isaac had more allergies than they’d previously thought, and that part of what was keeping Max from anchoring was their inability to get their family to work as a pack. His mind instantly flashed back to their appointment the afternoon before, when Dr. Oslo had scanned the page of results from their previous visit and announced that Isaac had tested highly for peanuts, strawberries, pollen, and almonds. 

"I know I s-should be relaxing…because it’s break, but...my thoughts are running a m-mile...a minute and...I can't s-slow...them d-down..." 

Derek didn't have to look over again to know there was panic in Stiles' eyes, that he was entering into an anxiety attack that would prove to be relentless. He had the right blinker on and his eyes checking the rearview and passenger side mirrors instantly, the wheel turning once the road was clear so that he could pull into an available section of parking along Main Street. 

"I've just been going going going...and everyone is s-suffering...because I haven't b-been home...and I...I'm hurting myself, too...because I haven't slept and I'm so overtired and stressed that I... _can't sleep_..."

"Take a few breaths, babe," Derek coached as he threw the car in park. "Where's your inhaler?" 

"I don't need my...stupid inhaler!" Stiles tried to yell, but it came out all hoarse and winded, his chest retracting with each intake of air. 

"You’re having a panic attack and it’s turning into asthma.” 

"M'not panicking." Stiles shook his head, one hand on his chest as he tried to take control of his breathing and emotions.

Derek was too busy rifling through the center console to argue, his attention focused on finding the spare inhaler he'd stashed away after Isaac's hospital stay in December. 

"M-max won't even let me...let me hold her without _screaming_ ," he started to sob, his wheezing growing louder as he tried to find the air to both cry and speak. "Even with Deaton’s…bonding technique. I can't even coddle her…especially when there's a...a full moon.” He took the deepest breath he could before continuing. “She’s biting Ize…and I’ve been m-making him sick…for months…with the…the stupid almond lotion…”

“Almonds?” Stiles had asked the doctor after they’d gone through Isaac’s test results earlier in the day, surprised and slightly relieved that they now knew the true extent of his allergies. “Good thing we’ve been staying away from all nuts.” 

“Hmm,” the doctor had hummed, and Stiles hadn’t particularly liked the sound of it at the time. He could feel that something negative was coming next, that one of the many fears that had burrowed into his heart on the day that Isaac had come home was about to come true. “You said he’s been having bouts of hives that you couldn’t explain?” 

“Yeah, they just crop up out of nowhere. We weren’t sure what it was because we don’t have any peanut or strawberry products in the house.” 

“He’s got a bit of eczema?” the doctor asked as he got up and examined one of Isaac’s arms without touching the child, paying careful attention to the small, red bumps permanently covering his elbow. 

“Just a small amount. I usually put cream on him after a bath to keep it at bay,” Stiles explained. 

“What brand?” 

“Mustela? It’s the hydrating baby lotion. The pediatrician recommended it because of his allergies and eczema.” 

“Almonds,” the allergist stated, shaking a finger in the air as he thought aloud. “Had a patient a few years ago with an almond allergy who had a reaction to that cream and a few others. Prunus amygdalus dulcis. Sweet almond oil.” 

Stiles had been lathering Isaac up for months in almond oil, something he hadn’t even known his son was severely allergic to, let alone that it was even in the lotion. The guilt had come suddenly in waves of hot and cold, his chest tightening as he turned his head away from everyone in the room and attempted to get a decent breath. 

_He’d_ been the cause of the hives and the wheezing and the fact that Isaac couldn’t stay off of his medications for long periods of time. _He’d_ put the lotion on Isaac the morning of his t-ball game after he’d scratched his elbows until they were raw, had covered him from the neck down the morning of his birthday. Why hadn’t he read the ingredients? _How could he have not known something like that?_

“Stiles, honey,” Derek was saying, his voice fading in and out. But Stiles couldn’t move, turn his head, or even breathe because the guilt was filling his lungs so that they wouldn’t expand. “Hey, it’s okay. Shh. Everything’s okay,” his husband coached as he pushed the plastic of the inhaler between his husband’s lips and tilted his head back just enough to for the first puff of medication to make it through. Stiles heard the inhaler again, but the particles got caught on his tongue, his lungs screaming for any semblance of air. “Breathe, Stiles! Come on! Just one good breath!” 

But how could he when he’d been making it so hard for his son to? 


	5. Keep Your Head Up, Keep Your Heart Strong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! New chapter is up! Thank you for all of your reads and support! Just a friendly reminder that I am an adult with a lot going on in my life right now between work (2 jobs, and taking on a third soon) and my illness. I totally understand that it is frustrating that I don't post every week. However, I DO spend a lot of time on each chapter and planning ahead and never want to post something that isn't good writing. Please understand this. With that said, I am hoping to post at least once a month from this point on.
> 
> Again, thank you for all of your support! And thank you to Casey, who has not stopped with school and life but still managed to beta this chapter. You are the best! Please leave reviews, my wonderful readers, as I read all of them!
> 
> Also, created a Tumblr to post extra updates, so go ahead to thewritestuffupdates and click follow. :)

Stiles tasted albuterol on his lips as he opened his eyes, the dryness in his throat growing as he sucked in short bursts of oxygen through a mask placed against his face. Someone was saying his name, but he couldn’t respond. Couldn’t respond because he couldn’t _breathe_. 

He closed his eyes again and let his lungs struggle for a few moments before he opened them and let them adjust to the brightness of what he realized was the back bay of an ambulance. 

“Just relax,” Derek soothed as he squeezed his husband’s hand, their eyes meeting. “Slow, easy breaths.” 

“Can’t,” he mouthed, the frustration at not being able to suddenly too much, tears sliding down his cheeks again as his eyes blinked to get them to stop. He didn’t want this to be happening, not on their first free night since Max, not in the middle of their much-needed date after what was arguably a hellish few months. 

His heart felt like it was ready to beat out of his chest, the awareness of just how quickly it was pumping causing his anxiety to grow ten-fold. He rubbed around his left set of ribs as if that would get the awful feeling to go away, the pain in his lungs growing more severe with each inhale. Growing agitated, Stiles began to move his legs. 

“They had to give you epinephrine.” Derek’s voice cracked as the words tumbled from his lips, his dark eyes watching the number on the portable heart monitor at the end of Stiles’ bed rising with each passing second. “Calm down, babe. Let the medication work,” he tried when his attention was focused back on his husband, his hand rubbing soft waves against his warm cheek. “I already called Lydia," he soothed, tears clouding his eyes. "She’s on her way to our place so she can watch the kids for the night. Your dad’s meeting us at the hospital." 

"No," he tried, his voice a strained whisper, his lungs burning from the effort. 

"Don’t talk, okay? I’m here," Derek said softly as he squeezed Stiles' hand. “I’m right here. Just, please,” his voice broke, tears continuing to sting his eyes as he sniffled. “Please keep breathing?” 

x

“I almost lost him,” the Sheriff admitted quietly to Derek later that night as he leaned against the hallway heater, eyes fixated on the tiled hospital floor as his hands stayed deep in his pockets. “It…uh…it was the year after his mother passed, when we were still pretty lost and didn’t talk about much.” He paused, almost as if he was debating whether to go on or not. “I happened to be up at 3AM because I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the bathroom to take something and stopped by Stiles’ room to check on him; I’d probably still do it from time to time if he lived at home.” 

Derek just nodded and gave a small smile at John’s last comment; he understood because, as a father, he did that almost every night himself. 

“Anyway, I heard this high-pitched whistling and it took me a few seconds to register that it was Stiles. By the time I had the light on, he couldn’t even take a shallow breath. It was like his chest wasn’t even moving. 

“He looked up at me just before the paramedics came in. His eyes were wide, but also, somehow, peaceful. And I remember thinking _he’s saying goodbye_ , as if he knew how close he was and wanted to let me know he loved me,” the Sheriff explained, shaking his head. “I’d lost it by then, but even through my tears I thought I saw him mouth _I’m sorry_.” He paused and took a slow, deep breath. “Stiles has a life-threatening attack and he’s the one that tries to apologize for it,” John chuckled, but Derek could tell that there were tears in his eyes from the way the short laugh had caught in his throat. 

“He had bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia. Ended up on a ventilator for two days and spent a week in the hospital,” John sniffled. “Stiles had been keeping it from me because he didn’t want to add to my burden. Didn’t want to be any more trouble than he already was because I was getting so many calls from the school for bad behavior.” 

“Sounds exactly like Stiles,” Derek said softly, knowing that although stubbornness was the main reason his husband was in a hospital bed down the hall, it was also one of the things that he loved most about him. 

“I had thought he was getting a cold and brushed it off as the change in the weather. I was too busy with my own stuff to realize my son was sick, and it pushed him to go behind my back to try and deal with it on his own.” John shifted his weight against the heater looked away. 

“I should have reached out, asked for help instead of taking on extra shifts to avoid everything. Melissa kept offering and I just kept turning her down. My son had become my anchor after Claudia passed, and I had leaned too heavily on him without realizing it. All of those late nights at work, the wordless frozen dinners in front of the TV, the bottles of whiskey… I had closed myself off emotionally from the one person I was trying to keep safe, and in trying to protect Stiles from my pain, I had created my own monster.” 

“So…you’re saying that this is my fault? That I caused his attack somehow?” Derek asked, suddenly on alert. It had been a long night already, and he’d never known John to talk to him like that, not since his days of being shoved into the back of cop cars with handcuffs around his wrists. 

“No,” John sighed, shaking his head. “That’s not…” he started, unsure of how to continue. He took a moment to think, his chin dropping to his chest. Derek waited for his reply, hands tight bound in fists. 

“Look, you have a beautiful family, Derek,” he finally said, looking up so that his eyes were in line with his son-in-law’s, his voice softening. Derek felt his grip loosen at the change in John’s tone. “And I know that you and Stiles have been giving it your all these past few months. That it’s been Hell attempting to balance Isaac’s emotional and medical needs, especially since he’s been in the hospital so much. I also know that Max has her own set of complicated issues that you’re facing head-on as a family, and that you’ve openly accepted help from Lydia, Deaton, and myself, which I know is a lot more difficult to do than it seems. 

“You guys even did your best to mediate between work and family, sometimes forfeiting emotional needs for financial ones, other times the opposite. The business trips, your promotion, Stiles’ lifeline to the PTA these past few months, has all been to give your family a better foundation. You still found time to sit and read with Isaac, to teach him how baseball works, to let him help you make Saturday morning pancakes. And I can see how badly Max is trying to attach herself, how hard you’ve all have been working to guide her. 

“It’s just that sometimes the stress of trying to get it right begins to weigh down on you in such a way that you know you need a break. But you don’t know when you’ll be able to take it, so you push through, taking it one day at a time, that future moment when you’ll finally get to relax tucked away in the back of your mind like a rainy day. And so when that day comes and all of the really heavy stuff in your life settles just enough, you find that your legs are still running full throttle, the adrenaline that has been keeping you going slowing to the point where you can’t help but fall forward and land flat on your face. Stiles is notorious for tackling too much at once and crashing when he finally gets to take a vacation.” 

“Which is why we’re here right now.” Derek sighed as he moved from the radiator and toward the window a few feet away, his palms pressing into the pane as he leaned his body weight forward. 

“I’m not sure if Stiles will ever really learn to slow down. I think his brain is pre-programmed to run until it can’t anymore. That, and he has this huge heart that is constantly getting him to take on too much for other people,” John chuckled as he neared Derek. “He got that from his mother.” 

“And maybe a little from his father.” Derek smiled, his eyebrows lifting as he thought of how much his father-in-law had helped them out the past few months. 

John nodded, his smile fading. “I can’t help but blame myself, too, though. I was trying to keep the stress down by watching the kids, but I know that it wasn’t enough. I’ve known he was past his point for a while now, and then I found Max that night…” he trailed. “And I’ve never really been sure of how to stop him from pushing himself like this. It’s like he can’t not give the people he loves the most his all.” 

“I guess there are worse things.” Derek shrugged, wishing to change the subject because he was tired and hungry and still quite worried about Stiles. “I’m hoping we can get him home by Sunday, but we won’t really know how he’s doing until tomorrow.” 

“You guys deserve a Father’s Day at home with Max and Ize,” John said, placing his hand on Derek’s shoulder as he met his gaze in the window’s reflection. “To celebrate how far you’ve all come, to _relax_. Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since Isaac came home. I see so much of you and Stiles in him these days.” Derek refocused his eyes so that they were fixated on the city below, his emotional senses heightened at his in-law’s words. 

John continued and pulled his hand away. “You know, the other day Max was in her carrier in the hallway and I was trying to get them out the door so I could run some errands before Ize’s game. She was in the middle of one of her tantrums and we were going to be late, so I left them alone for a second and ran into the kitchen to grab my keys. When I returned Ize was in the middle of telling her all about baseball. About how you never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game and how to hold the bat so you don’t hurt your wrists when the ball comes. 

“I just stopped at the end of the hallway and listened, because he was doing such a good job of calming her down and I didn’t want to break up their little moment. His voice was so gentle, like he was wrapping her in it and she was finally getting the chance to feel safe and secure. You know how her screaming is, like she’s petrified and alone and just wants someone to tell her it’s going to be okay?” 

Derek nodded, smiling slightly at the fact that someone had finally been able to put the phenomenon into words. 

“I think Ize does that for her. Kind of like Stiles used to do for Scott when they were little.” The sudden mention of Scott left a sour taste in Derek’s mouth; he tried to remember the last time Scott had called the house or sent a ‘how’s it going’ text, but he came up empty. Allison had been the one to confirm their flights, car rental, and itinerary via email. She’d been the one to check up on Isaac after his last hospital visit with a ten-minute phone call. She’d even asked for a list of Isaac’s allergies the last time Derek had visited on business while they’d both taken a lunch break. 

Ever since he’d graduated college and moved to New York (on Allison’s family’s money), Scott had been pretty absent in their lives. He came up from time to time in conversation, mostly small mentions of ‘remember whens’ and reminders to check schedules to see who was free to travel when. And each year they sent along a Christmas and birthday present for Tessa, Scott and Allison’s hyper but adorable six-year-old daughter. In truth, Stiles and Scott had only seen each other a handful of times since college, and while it hadn’t surprised Derek that Scott was the one who had come up when Stiles was fighting through his attack that night when they’d stopped around sunset at Griffith Park, he remembered wondering _why_? 

What had gone on between Scott and Stiles as children? Derek knew that Scott’s parents had divorced when he was young, that Stiles’ mother had passed when he was twelve. He guessed that maybe there was a large part of Stiles’ life that he didn’t actually know about, had just filled in with placeholders until those details came up. For a moment, he regretted buying his family plane tickets to New York. 

Because Derek had texted Scott three hours ago, and even though it had been almost midnight on the East Coast, he’d still expected a response. Knew that on a Friday night, he and Allison were probably still awake and out at some museum benefit or gala. 

“Anyway, I’m gonna go check on Stiles again before I head out,” John explained, walking away from the window. “I promised Lydia I’d stay with her at your place, so if you need me just call the house phone.” John patted his son-in-law on the shoulder as a goodbye while Derek slid his phone from his pocket. 

As he leaned back against the heater, he thumbed through his messages to Scott, Lydia, and Deaton, finally opening his thread with Allison. He copied what he’d sent to everyone else but paused before hitting the green ‘send’ icon, wondering if it was worth the extra effort; he shouldn’t have to go through Allison to get any sort of response from Scott, especially not after such a dangerously severe attack. 

The thought hit Derek right in the heart, his first breath of air afterwards a short gasp of the realization that had been haunting him since they’d arrive at the hospital. He could have _lost him_. Almost watched his world collapse right in his arms as they sat waiting for the paramedics on Main Street. Derek wasn’t one for dramatics, but that hadn’t stopped him from breaking down in the waiting room in the ER. The nurses wouldn’t let him in to see his husband, and for once it wasn’t because there was paperwork or that they were gay or married. 

It was because Stiles had stopped breathing. 

That moment felt both seconds and days away; one minute, Derek would feel relieved that things had turned out okay, and the next like he was still sitting in the car watching as Stiles’ chest stopped rising. 

Even from down the hall, Derek could sense how heavy the medication levels in his husband’s body were. It had been the same with Isaac, but even with the ventilator back in December, the fog had never seemed this dense, like the air in the entire wing was saturated with a cloud of epinephrine and magnesium that he couldn’t escape. How, he wondered, had he gone all of those years not knowing about the asthma when the smell of albuterol was now so familiar? 

His thumb hovered over ‘send’, thoughts centered around the upcoming reunion he suddenly wanted no part in. Even on Derek’s trips to New York, Scott had mostly ignored him, which made him realize that he really only made plans to meet the couple (which was usually just Allison) for lunch or dinner because it made Stiles happy. Made him feel _connected_ to the number one person on Derek’s imaginary hit list at the moment. 

Derek promised himself he’d contact Allison in the morning, when Stiles was finally out of the medication they’d administered to force him into relaxing and healing. As he walked down the darkened hall toward his husband’s room, he wondered this: If Stiles was even remotely up for the trip, would seeing Scott be the best thing for him? 

x

When Stiles woke up, the room around him was dark except for a single beam of what had to be sunlight streaming through the meeting place of two closed maroon curtains blocking the windows. His chest ached, but he could finally breathe somewhat normally thanks to the oxygen line running beneath his nose. He tried to move, but a multitude of wires attached via adhesive pads across his chest pulled uncomfortably, the monitor beeping in response to the change in his heart rate. 

Derek, who’d been fast asleep in the plastic chair beside his bed, woke with a start, eyes wide as he came-to. He smiled as he neared the bed, a hand coming up to Stiles’ face, tears springing to his eyes as his thumb rubbed gently against his husband’s cheek just as he’d done in the ambulance. “How are you feeling?” 

“Okay,” Stiles replied, voice raspy, head slightly fuzzy from having just woken up. “The kids?” he asked, the words jagged as they left his mouth; between the attack and medication, his throat was so dry that it felt like it was on fire. That, and he had the worst metallic taste in his mouth. 

“They’re fine, home with Lydia and your dad,” Derek assured him. 

“How long…” he started, his voice giving out before he could finish. 

“Since last night. You had a pretty severe attack.” Derek looked away for a moment and swallowed back another set of tears as the memory of the doctors refusing to let him stay with his husband once they’d reached the ER entered his mind. 

“Sorry,” Stiles whispered as he remembered his husband pushing the inhaler between his lips in the car, the _I’m_ lost in his throat as he tried to keep himself from crying. The tears appeared anyway, the tiny droplets rolling down his cheeks and over the nasal cannula delivering oxygen to his tired lungs. 

“Shh,” Derek soothed as he wiped his husband’s tears and then his own. “You have nothing to apologize for. No one asks for an asthma attack, especially not one like you had.” 

Stiles nodded in response, a second wave of tears hitting him, causing him to close his eyes and breathe through his mouth, the monitor beside his bed beeping at the change in his oxygen level. He missed his babies, wanted to be home and cuddling them in bed instead of attached to a bunch of loud machines in a room that smelled like bleach. 

“None of that, okay?” Derek sniffled, adjusting the angle of the hospital bed so that Stiles could breathe a little easier. Stiles nodded but he couldn’t get himself to stop. Tomorrow was Father’s Day, the one holiday he’d been looking forward to since Christmas because of what it would mean for their family. This time last year he and Derek had only dreamed of being granted permission to adopt, and now they’d been blessed with two beautiful babies that he couldn’t imagine his life without, both of whom were at home without him. 

“Water?” he asked softly, Derek appearing with an already poured cup and straw which he brought to his husbands lips. Stiles sipped until the cup was empty and let his head sink back into the pillows, the sight of an IV bag filled with dark fluid suddenly catching his attention, His tears slowed and his eyes, full of questions and fear, met Derek’s as at the side of his bed. 

“You were severely anemic when they brought you in, so they got you on intravenous iron. The doctor said that it explains the exhaustion, dizziness, and breathlessness you’ve been having.” 

“And the bruises,” Stiles whispered to himself as tears filled his eyes again, still unable to speak full sentences. 

Derek, concerned, squeezed Stiles’ hand to reassure him. “Hey, the doctor said it’s just because you ran yourself down, babe. You should start feeling better in-” 

“No.” Stiles sniffled, shaking his head. “I thought…that maybe I had…you know, like my mom?” 

“Other than the asthma, you’re okay,” Derek whispered, lifting his husband from the bed and pulling him against his chest as he willed away any thoughts related to cancer. “ _We’re_ okay, babe,” Derek promised as he extracted the pain, one sliver at a time, from Stiles. 

x

Stiles could hear his father’s voice echoing from the dining room, the ups and downs of his conversation with Derek carrying out into the darkened living room where he lay propped up and immobile on the couch. He shifted uncomfortably against the cushions and sea of blankets around him, his lungs feeling as though they were full of water, the pressure within them increasing as the minutes since his last breathing treatment ticked by. 

How long had it been since Derek had forced him to lay down, turned the air conditioner on high, and ripped open the giant paper bag full of prescriptions from CVS? Forty minutes? An hour? Three? They’d left the hospital around 1 that afternoon, meaning that his next treatment was due sometime around 5:00. It felt so much later than that, but Stiles knew it was only because every minute felt like an hour when your lungs were closing. He tried to read the digital numbers on the cable box, but all he could see was a red, fuzzy blob. His throat was too dry to call out, his arms too sore and heavy to reach across the table and pick up his inhaler. 

So he closed his eyes again and willed himself to doze off, the end result an awful in-between of sleeping and wakefulness that he’d come to know after his past and thankfully few encounters with such severe attacks. The last time he’d been this weak was when he was thirteen and he’d spent four foggy days in the ICU after what was definitely his worst bout with asthma. He hadn’t been able to place this attack quite yet, but he knew from the way every cell in his body ached that it was up there on the list. 

A pleasant mix of broth and herbs wafted over from the kitchen, making Stiles think that maybe he could make it to dinner, could sit at the table with his family to enjoy being around them for at least ten minutes. That, and the steroids that had been pumped through his IV at the hospital had left him ravenous in regards to food, his hunger ever-present thanks to the pills he’d ingested when he’d first arrive home. 

_Home_. The idea filled him with a small wave of comfort, just enough to make him smile and relax his anxiety over everything that had happened in the last 36 hours. He took a somewhat calming breath, and then another, the struggle still there but his mind finally able to overpower it enough to rest.

x

“Isaac could hear you wheezing from the kitchen,” Derek said some time later with a sigh, disheartened that his senses had been so overloaded that he’d missed it. Stiles’ eyelids opened just enough for him to see his husband sitting on the coffee table assembling a treatment. “Why didn’t you ring the bell?” 

There’d been a bell? Stiles turned his head to look over at the coffee table, breaths coming in short spurts, his eyelids so tired from all of his medication that he could only see dark, blurry shapes through the slits. 

“You look and sound awful,” his husband commented, shaking his head while he filled the reservoir cup with albuterol. “If this treatment doesn’t clear things up, I’m taking you back.” Stiles wanted to protest, but he could barely form the words in his mind. 

“Daddy?” Isaac asked from somewhere in the room, his voice distant as Stiles struggled to stay awake. 

“We need to let him rest, Ize. How about we play a game of catch in the backyard?” he heard his father offer. 

“But I wanna stay wif Daddy!” the child whined, Stiles’ heart squeezing at the pain in his son’s voice. 

Before he could even think of anything to say, Derek was strapping the mask to his nebulizer over his face, the medication misting against his nose and lips. He closed his eyes as he tried to relax and get a good breath, the couch cushion sinking as he felt his husband squeeze in next to him. 

“I’m so sorry you’re so sick,” Derek whispered when he was sure John had taken Isaac out back, and even though Stiles could feel strips of pain leaving his body, it somehow wasn’t enough. He felt lips against his forehead and heard the parting of a small kiss, which only made the emotional strings within him pull tighter. “Let’s prop you up,” he offered, Stiles feeling his body shift upright. There wasn’t an ounce of energy left in his bones, not that there’d been much when he’d first woken up, but thankfully the wheezing all but quieted with the change in angle, mist finally working through his airways as the nebulizer buzzed from the carpet. He slipped back into the fog again, lungs opening and closing with just a little less effort than before, the idea of sitting at the dinner table a distant, unreachable thought. 

x

The next time Stiles woke, the mask and buzzing were gone. He could breathe more freely, but he still felt like absolute crap. 

"Daddy?" he heard Isaac ask quietly, the child’s mouth so close to his ear that he could feel his tiny breaths against his skin. "Are you going to heaven?" 

"Hmm?" he’d mumbled as he was pulled from another hazy dream, his eyes attempting to focus on his son in the mostly darkened room. 

"Gampa said that Gamma was at the hosital before she goed to heaven," Isaac started, his fingers perched on the edge of his lip as he spoke. "And the other night he tolded Max and me that you haded a attack and you had to go in the wambulance like that time I eated strawberries. And he was crying and…” He paused, starting to cry. “I got really, really _scawed_.” 

"Shh, I'm not going to heaven…any time soon, baby," Stiles assured him, his voice gruff from his strained vocal cords as he weakly pulled his son into his arms on the couch. The paper from his hospital bands scraped loudly against Isaac’s t-shirt in the quiet room as Stiles tried to recall the last time his father had cried, the guilt of his attack multiplying in his heart. 

"Then why was Gampa so sad?" Isaac sniffled, confused. 

"Because I'm his baby,” Stiles stated, taking as deep a breath as he could. “And he was worried, just like I am when you have attacks." 

“Papa said to leave you awone because you need to sleep, but I don’t like being awone after attacks, so I don’t want you to be.” 

“Come here.” Stiles smiled as he let their hug go and patted the couch cushion. Isaac complied and crawled over him to lie in the crook of his armpit, his bright blue eyes smiling up at his father, the sheer happiness in getting to be close to him evident in the way his lips were curved into a wide grin. Stiles felt a small amount of pressure over his heart and looked down to see that it was Isaac’s hand. 

“Papa does this to help me feew better when I’m sick,” Isaac explained. “Is it working?” 

“Yeah, baby,” Stiles lied, tears pricking his eyes at the thought. “Thank you.” 

“Hey, I can read you a story!” Isaac offered sweetly, his hand still on his father’s chest. “Just like you read to me when I’m sick.” 

“Books are too far away.” Stiles was suddenly fighting to keep his eyes open once again, the idea of a 32-page adventure too much at the moment. 

“That’s otay, I knowed one in my heart,” he stated matter-of-factly.   
“Alright, let’s hear it,” Stiles said tiredly as Isaac began, knowing he’d probably be falling asleep mid-story.

"Onesuponna time there was a boy named Teddy who was always havin’ attacks ‘cause he lived a long time ago and there wasn’t any med’cine for people like us back then. And his mommy and daddy stayed up all night with him when he was sick, just like you and Papa do for me. They tooked him to a million doctors to try and make him feew better but he still had attacks, so they’d take him on horsie rides in the night ‘cause the cold air was good for his lungs. 

“And when he growed up he started sports to be healthy and worked really hard at school so he could be smart, and then one day he became President by accident and he did lots of good things and made our country and the world better. The end.” 

"Where'd you hear…that one?" Stiles asked, eyes still closed; he already knew the answer. 

"Gampa told it to me when I haded a attack at the food store." Stiles imagined his father trying to keep a wheezing, hysterical Isaac calm in the backseat as they rushed back to the house, his words even and reassuring as the anxiety within was mounting. John had told Stiles that story, in its many shapes and forms, countless times as a young child. Theodore Roosevelt had been quite the hero in their household, and with his childhood asthma a personal connection to Stiles, his father had found it profoundly fitting. 

“He used to tell me that one all the time…when I was little,” Stiles explained, smiling tiredly as he reminisced. It was still difficult to speak in full sentences, but he was able to take them slowly with breaths between parts. 

“Gampa said they called Teddy a lion ‘cause he was brave and strong,” Isaac explained. “He never got scawed.” 

“Everyone gets scared,” Stiles assured him, thinking back to examples from the Roosevelt’s autobiography that he had read in college. “Even the President.” 

“How could he be strong if he was scared?” The disbelief in Isaac’s voice was strong, and Stiles imagined his son’s eyebrows twisting like Derek’s when he was confused. 

“Maybe sometimes…you have to be scared to grow strong,” Stiles responded, his voice just a whisper before he yawned, his chest aching at the strain. It caused him to cough, his lungs rattling loudly, Isaac pulling away for a moment before he placed his hand back on his father’s heart. 

“Do you ever get scared, Daddy?” he finally asked. 

“All the time, baby. Papa does, too.” 

“About what?” 

“Everything. Mostly you and Max,” he explained. “But in a good way. We worry about you because we love you so much…just like Gampa was worried…about me after my attack.” Stiles was wheezing slightly by the end, his lungs tired and burning from effort. Part of him wished he was back in the hospital for that very reason, the other half thankful to have Isaac in his arms. 

“But Papa said worrying makes you sick,” Isaac said. Even in the darkened room, Stiles could see his son’s anxiety rising, his hands already by his lips. 

“You didn’t make me sick, Isaac,” Stiles said slowly after taking a moment to build up the air to answer. “There are lot of reasons…why I got sick, but you aren’t one of them.” 

“Was it Maxy?” 

“No, baby.” Stiles shook his head. “You know how Papa and I…we always tell you to let us know when you can’t breathe…or you think you’re allergic?” 

“When the elephants come and sit on my chest?” 

“Mhmm. I ignored that. I didn’t take my inhaler or do treatments…when I knew I was getting sick.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because…I was tired…of being sick,” Stiles finally realized, thinking through the last few months. Had there even been a week where he’d been able to leave his inhaler at home without a second thought? Or hadn’t suffered through a coughing fit without cursing himself for not bringing the device to work? How many boxes of nebulizer solution had he-not Isaac-gone through since January? Had the attack really all been building up for six months? 

“Are you sure it wasn’t me and Maxy?” Isaac asked nervously, still not entirely convinced. “Papa and Gampa was in the kitchen saying that you got sicker when I haded my attack before my birfday and then Max came and made it all worse.” Stiles could hear Isaac sniffling beside him, felt his body pull away so that he could stuff his face into the couch. 

“Isaac, I promise…that you and Max are not why I’m sick,” he tried, but Isaac refused to move from his hiding position. “Hey,” he soothed, attempting to pry his son with what strength he did have in his arms. “Please turn around so I can explain…what Gampa and Papa meant.” 

“I gived you the stress!” Isaac began to cry, turning to face his father. 

“Baby, that’s not what…they meant. Not at all.” 

“I sowwy!” he sobbed, Stiles suddenly fearing that Derek or his father would hear and take Isaac away so that he could “rest”. 

“Shh, Isaac, this isn’t your fault. Daddy promises. Gampa and Papa…meant that I can’t handle stress well, not that you being sick…made me sick. I get sad when your or Max don’t feel well. And instead of letting it go, it sits…in my heart. And I try to think of ways to fix…whatever is making you guys sick.” Stiles tried to get the words out as quickly as possible, afraid that if he didn’t Isaac would grow even more upset. He was panting by the end, pinpricks of light dotting his vision. 

“Papa said you don’t let things go like you’re supposed to,” Isaac finally added in, his crying reduced to sniffles now, brain busy remembering the last conversation he’d had with his father about this just a month ago. 

Stiles just nodded in response, his pulse rushing loudly in his ears, lungs heavier than they’d been five minutes beforehand. 

“And Gampa said that it’s your person’ity.” 

He wanted to laugh at Isaac’s approximation of the word personality, but found that he could barely get enough air to keep the pinpricks away. Thankfully, the light flicked on and he could hear Derek’s footsteps entering the room. 

“Ize, honey,” he warned, though there was a warmth to his tone. “I told you that Daddy needs to rest.” 

“I didn’t want him to be alone,” the child sniffled, wiping his tears with the back of his hand. “’Cause he’s wheezin’.” 

“I can her that,” Derek noted, sitting down on the coffee table and reaching across it for his husband’s inhaler. Stiles’ lungs rejoiced at the sight while his brain was busy calculating how long it had been since his last breathing treatment. “Did you make Daddy do a lot of talking?” he asked as he shook the device. 

“Just a little,” Isaac said innocently. 

“Alright. Can you please go and help Gampa set the table for dinner? I have to get Daddy to sit up and take some medicine.” 

“Is he gonna eat with us?” Isaac asked, looking down at Stiles’ hospital bracelets. 

“The sooner you get up the sooner Daddy can use his inhaler and we can start dinner, okay?” Derek promised; Isaac was up and across the room in a flash. 

“Thanks,” Stiles said, his response weak and winded as Derek guided his legs over the side of the couch so that they were touching the floor, his back settling into the cushions of the couch. 

“I need you to tell me if you’re having a lot of trouble breathing,” Derek said quietly as he handed the inhaler over, Stiles taking two slow puffs, willing as much air as possible into his lungs after each one. 

“What time is it?” he finally asked, avoiding his husband’s statement. 

“6:30. You slept for most of the day, but it’s obvious that you needed it.” 

“I haven’t felt like this since I was thirteen,” Stiles admitted, closing his eyes again as exhaustion weighed down on him. 

“That’s the anemia. Part of your breathlessness is what’s called air hunger,” Derek explained. “The doctor said it feels like you’re just not getting the air. You’re short on red blood cells so you actually aren’t getting enough oxygen delivered on top of already having a hard time breathing.” 

“Great,” Stiles groaned. 

“You have to take your iron pills with food or they’ll bother your stomach.” 

“I didn’t have to take pills…in the hospital,” he mumbled, half-asleep. 

“Because you were on continuous IVs for two days.” 

“M’not hungry,” Stiles lied, suddenly too tired to even think about rising from the couch. The only walking he’d done all day was from the car in the driveway to this couch, and that had been more than enough with the way he was feeling. 

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the exhaustion talking because you’ve been on steroids now for three days and Isaac is usually eating us out of house and home by day two.” 

“Can’t I eat here on the couch?” Stiles asked sleepily. 

“You have to get up for a little bit. The last thing we need is you getting pneumonia from laying down all day.” 

“Der, I really, _really_ don’t…feel well.” 

“I know, but I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was in your best interest. I think it’ll be good for Ize, too.” 

x

Two minutes later, Stiles was in a chair at the head of the dining room table, his chin propped up tiredly by his right arm, elbow firm against the tablecloth. He felt like falling asleep in his food, his exhaustion making his breathing worse. It wasn’t until his father slid a steaming cup of black coffee in front of him that he began to perk up, and a few sips in he was starting to feel just enough of a burst of energy to lift his fork. 

“Papa says that when you’re bettew we can go to a Mets game!” Isaac smiled at Stiles as Derek slid a plate of dinner in front of him. 

“In New York,” Derek added as he took his own seat beside Max’s highchair. “If…” he started, but stopped when he realized the direction the conversation might go in. 

“If I’m well enough…to travel,” Stiles finished, glaring over at his husband with a flash of anger from across the table. 

“I meant that we’d see how you’re feeling before we leave in six days,” Derek iterated, his eyes focused intently on avoiding Stiles’ as he tried to postpone a confrontation. He knew it was probably just the steroids making his husband difficult, and that that, coupled with Stiles’ obvious frustration at being unable to even walk without assistance, was a terrible combination. 

“And who is going to decide how I’m feeling? Hmm?” Stiles continued, irritation growing. “You? My doctor? A magic 8 ball?” 

“We’re supposed to be having a relaxed dinner,” John reminded with a warning tone as Derek shifted to feeding Max a spoonful of pureed squash. 

“I am relaxed! I’ve been “resting”,” he air-quoted sarcastically, albeit weakly, “all freaking day!” 

“Language,” Derek cautioned before taking a forkful of rice and chicken from his plate and bringing it to his mouth. 

“Really?” Stiles countered. 

“Daddy, what does “freaking” mean?” Isaac asked, too distracted by the conversation to even start eating. 

“Stiles, tone it down,” his father whispered forcefully. “Derek’s been cooking all day with the hope that he’d be able to get you up and at the table for Father’s Day dinner. I know you don’t feel great and your medication makes you moody but please, just for the next twenty minutes, cool it. He’s exhausted, I’m exhausted, we’re all just ridiculously _exhausted_ ,” he continued to whisper, buttoning his speech with a heavy sigh. 

“Sorry,” Stiles apologized softly, looking up at Derek and catching his eyes for a moment. “Dinner looks…wonderful. Thank you, babe.” He began to dig in, taking small mixings of the rice, chicken, and vegetables to his mouth. 

“You’re welcome,” Derek offered with a nod after he’d finished taking a sip of water. He went to lift another spoonful of squash to Max’s lips, but John insisted. 

“You eat. I’ll take care of Maxine.” 

“Daaaaa!” Max gurgled after taking in the spoonful, her mouth full of mush. 

“I helped Gampa pick out a chocolate cake from the no nuts bakery while you were sleepin’,” Isaac shared proudly between bites of his food. 

“My favorite,” Stiles smiled, his energy suddenly lagging again. He let his fork down gently on the plate and leaned his right forearm on the tablecloth to hold himself up; as hungry as he was, his body was slowing down, the caffeine from his few sips of coffee making his head spin. John nudged an iron pill across the table, Stiles shakily raising his glass to swallow it. 

“Da! Ba!” Max chirped, face covered in orange goo as she squirmed happily in her seat. Stiles smiled at her as he set his glass down, the baby’s mood so lifted that he could actually feel her joy. 

“Aunt Lyddie was trying to get Max to make words while we watched Brave the other night,” Isaac explained. “Right Maxy?” 

“Da!” Max repeated, pushing the spoon in John’s hand away as she bounced in her seat and turned toward Derek. “Pa!” Her dark eyes met her father’s and refused to leave. “Da! Pa!” 

“Babies can’t speak…at five months,” Stiles finally said aloud, having trouble believing what he was hearing. 

“She’s looking right at you,” John smiled, Max seemingly taking her cue as she stared at her Papa and repeated her sound for him. 

“Da! Pa!” she drooled, her eyes never leaving Derek’s. She reached her arms out toward him, legs pushing as if that would free her from her chair. When she realized that she was secured by straps and clips, she began to fuss. “Da! Pa!” 

“Alright, I’ve got you,” Derek chuckled as he unbuckled her and lifted her up and into his arms. 

“Da! Pa!” Max continued, her legs kicking happily once again. 

“You know, she hasn’t cried once since you came home,” John said, nudging Stiles. In truth, he’d felt a small pang of jealousy in watching Max attach herself so easily to Derek, but he’d also had a moment of awe, which was continuing as he watched her coo in his lap, her hands reaching for his plate. He quickly pushed it to the middle of the table even though he was nowhere near finished, the smile on his face so wide that it made Stiles smile despite his exhaustion. “She was inconsolable until you walked in the door today.” 

“Yeah, I don’t believe that for a second,” Stiles grumbled tiredly, his eyelids lagging. 

“Sheriff’s honor,” John promised lifting one hand up as if he was taking an oath. Stiles chuckled and looked back over at Derek with Max in his lap, Isaac reaching his hand toward hers and pulling it away in a game that both children were finding hilarious. Despite the fact that his lungs were starting to grow heavy and his muscles in his arms and legs were aching so much that he wasn’t sure how he was going to get back to the couch, Stiles felt thankful. 

Thankful for a husband who had kept a spare inhaler in the center console, had sat by his bedside after he’d been admitted to the hospital, had asked the pharmacist for a mask instead of a mouthpiece for his nebulizer because he knew he’d be too weak to hold it up himself, had spent hours preparing a fabulous meal even though Stiles might be too sick to eat it. Thankful for a father who had dropped everything for him and his family. Derek and John were the epitome of exhaustion at the moment, and yet they were both excited by Max rambling _Da! Pa!_ , Isaac trying to correct her. 

“She’s got a ways to go,” John commented. “But it’s a start if I ever saw one.” 

“Mmhm,” Stiles responded, the haze from earlier returning. 

“You’re two seconds away from falling asleep in your food,” John said softly as he rose from his chair and secured his hold on his son to move him across the room. 

“I can…do it,” he insisted, even though it was a lie. 

“Don’t fight it, Stiles. You’re sick. It happens.” 

x

He wasn’t sure how long it took them to get to the couch, but it felt like forever and a day until his dad had the reservoir of the nebulizer filled and the mask on his face, wheezing from hobbling across the house still overpowering the compressor when it hissed to life. 

“Haven’t had to do that for you since you were thirteen,” his dad joked as he picked up the wrappers from the foil wrapping and plastic vials from the nebulizer solution scattered across the coffee table and held them tightly in his fist. 

Stiles shot his father that _Dad!_ , rolling-of-the-eyes look as he tried to keep them open. 

“Happy Father’s Day, son,” he smiled anyway, kissing Stiles on the forehead before Derek or the kids could take notice. 

“You too, Dad,” he answered weakly after pulling his mask down just an inch. 

“Thanks, kiddo. You get some rest, okay?” 

Stiles nodded and began to drift into sleep, his eyelids fluttering open sometime later when he felt the Isaac’s lips against his ear once again, the soft and sweetly whispered words, “I love you! Happy Daddy’s Day!” melting his heart as the constriction in his lungs slowly abated. 


	6. Thinking Out Loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I am so, so sorry that this chapter is extremely late. I have more written but it needs fixing before I can post. I have received many comments on readers begging me to post. I PROMISE that I will post whenever I can! It's just difficult sometimes because I have an autoimmune disease that makes it hard to juggle work and the extra little things, like my writing. Sadly, it is my writing that usually takes the backseat because I have to be able to support myself.
> 
> Keep the comments and kudos coming! They keep me motivated and let me know what you guys think is going to happen next! Thank you for sticking with me!

“Allison said she picked up diapers for Max so that we don’t have to travel with them,” Stiles explained from the foyer while he and Derek ran around the house packing last minute bags for their trip to New York. “And I put a few of her teethers and board books in her diaper bag so that we can keep her occupied on the plane once the tincture Deaton gave you for her wears off.”

“Sounds good. Did you pack Ize’s nebulizer?” Derek asked as he rummaged around the living room, first lifting a messy stack of magazines from the coffee table before running a hand beneath the couch to feel for any tubing. 

“No, why?” Stiles asked as he attempted to squish an unopened bundle of baby wipes into Max’s mostly full diaper bag. 

“I can’t find it,” Derek sighed, one hand on his hip as he stood up, eyebrows meeting at the bridge of his nose. 

“Sadly, I’m going to take that as a good sign,” Stiles joked, laughing softly as he entered the room. “Because that means we haven’t needed it in at least two weeks, and I can’t really remember the last time that happened.” 

Derek stopped for a moment and smiled before walking toward Stiles and pulling him into a deep kiss, diaper bag between them for just a second before the strap slipped from Stiles’ fingers and fell to the carpet. At once, Stiles had his arms around his Derek’s neck, weight moving to the balls of his feet as he pushed himself closer. Derek’s hands met at the small of Stiles’ back for just a moment before he moved them to his husband’s hips. With both children napping, it was a rare and quiet moment for the two, one that Stiles hadn’t realized just how badly he’d needed until it was happening. 

“It’s been a pretty busy day for you,” Derek said, pulling back suddenly as Stiles went to kiss his husband’s neck, his lips left with nothing but air against them. Derek was referencing the loads of laundry, cleaning, packing, and errands Stiles had had to run with Isaac in tow while he took Max to an appointment with Deaton. “You doing okay?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles replied, confused and slightly angered by his husband’s maneuver; the sudden change in conversation made Stiles want to walk away without a word and tackle the ever-growing TO DO list he’d created in his phone so that he was sure they were prepared for New York. It didn’t matter that he was exhausted and feeling like he might drop at any second. The stress of the trip was mounting, and Stiles was not going to let a little iron deficiency and asthma get in the way of caring for his family. “I took a break around 11. Had some lunch,” he explained, scratching the back of his neck as he looked away, embarrassed that this was why his husband had interrupted their moment. 

“Did you take your pills?” 

He hated these conversations, how they popped up multiple times a day without fail since his severe attack over a week ago. “Reluctantly.” Stiles knew he couldn’t lie about that; Derek refused to stop reminding him that the metallic aura from the iron pills was beyond overwhelming, which meant he knew when his husband hadn’t downed them. 

“You didn’t rest.” Statement. 

“I did, actually.” Rebuttal. 

“Sitting at a few red lights doesn’t count as resting, Stiles.” Retort. 

“When you’re trying to get your family packed for a trip 3,000 miles from home it is.” Comeback. Inward smirk. 

Pause. 

“I’m still really worried about you.” Whisper. 

The guilt that Stiles had been working through since his hospital stay returned instantly, crushing anxiety filling his heart and lungs so that they couldn’t function. He turned away from his husband and tried to catch his breath, thinking that if there was any one good way to shut his respiratory system down, it was to bring up the fact that it didn’t always do what it was supposed to. _And_ that it sometimes required other peoples’ attention. Re: THE Hospital Stay. 

“You really don’t get it,” Stiles finally managed, realizing that the tightness in his chest was more frustration than asthma. 

“Get what?” Derek asked, confused. 

“That you’re suffocating me!” It came out harsher than he’d wanted it to, the words thankfully only echoing in the small room and not the house. “That you’ve been making it really hard to breathe with all of your questions and frowning…and your eyebrows all knit together…and the concern emanating from your body every single day. I feel like the biggest burden in the world…and it’s the last thing I want to be!” 

“You’re not a burden, Stiles-”

He interrupted with a sad little chuckle, tears springing to his eyes as he got more and more of his breath back. “Of course I am, Derek! Because I can’t always tell when I’m getting sick. Not way in advance, anyway. Maybe a few seconds before, when it’s already happening, but even then I can’t stop it.” Stiles began to pace around the room, the motion reminding him of his father when he was trying to crack a tough case. “I couldn’t stop it in the car the other night.” He sighed and shook his head. “Jesus, I couldn’t even _take care of myself as it was happening_! It’s just under control until it’s not and I know that this last attack and the anemia was pretty much my own fault, but I already feel guilty enough about it to last me a lifetime and I don’t need you to ask me if I took my pills or inhalers or a freaking nap so that it doesn’t happen again!” He was panting by the end, tears ready to fall as he waited for his husband to respond. “I…I don’t want this! I never asked for this! It’s not-I can’t-”

“Hey,” Derek soothed, afraid to approach Stiles because of the way he was half-crumpled, still trying to catch his breath. “I know you didn’t ask for all of this. I know it’s not fair. No one asks to be sick, babe. I told you that in the hospital. I said-”

“You said, _no one asks for an asthma attack, especially not one like you had_.” 

“Exactly.” Derek thought for a moment, jaw set as he stared Stiles straight in the eye. “Sometimes, though, you need help. That night in the car? You needed my help.” His voice was steady and warm, arm reaching out to take his husband’s. “And that’s okay.” 

Stiles fought the urge to pull away, sniffling as he kept from letting himself full-on cry. He hadn’t let himself get upset about the entire ordeal yet, nor had he ever planned to. He would deal with this one just like all the others: Forgetting until that feeling of not being able to breathe returned some time in the future, when he couldn’t ignore it any longer. “I don’t like needing help. I-I just want to be able to do all of this on my own. To know that I don’t have to worry about getting sick at the drop of a hat and be an inconvenience to my entire family-”

“It’s not an inconvenience, Stiles.” 

He looked up and threw his husband a sharp, you-can’t-fool-me look. 

“Okay,” Derek admitted, putting his hands up by his chest in half-surrender. “So you and Ize getting sick is inconvenient. But that doesn’t mean that either of _you_ are a burden. If it were me who were sick you’d be saying the same exact thing. We have a good system going, and your father and Lydia help out when we’re really struggling. We’ve gotten better at keeping Ize’s asthma under control, and you’re on the mend right now. Yeah, it’s messy and it sucks and I hate watching you guys suffer the way you do, but we deal with it in our own way.” 

“I just wish it wasn’t like this.” 

“I was listening to this segment on NPR a few months ago.” Derek started on a new subject, his voice soothing as he grabbed Stiles’ other hand. “This woman wrote a book about having a chronic illness in your 20’s and 30’s and she was talking about the emotional toll it all takes on you.” 

“Probably about how the experiences of people who are sick should be some kind of inspiration to others,” Stiles grumbled, thinking about all of the sappy quotes and pictures of people overcoming obstacles that would pop up on his Facebook feed. 

“Actually, she talked mostly about the guilt and the isolating experience of it all. She talked against the idea of sharing stories about being sick solely to inspire others and discussed wanting to be seen as a whole person by society. And of course I thought about you and Ize the whole time; she’s got breathing issues and some of her stories hit a little too close to home.” 

“What was her name?” he asked, suddenly intrigued. 

“Can’t remember. I’ll have to find it in my podcasts.” 

Stiles just nodded, remembering why they’d started on the particular topic they’d ended up on, his mood dimming again. 

“I don’t ask you how you’re feeling to make you self-conscious, Stiles. Plus, I can tell when you’re lying anyway, so it’s not like I’m actually expecting an honest answer.” 

“So then why do you do it?” Stiles was still feeling somewhat bitter about the whole thing, but he listened and continued to hold hands with his husband anyway. 

“I have this protection instinct,” Derek explained, moving his hand so that his fingers from both hands were wrapped in both of Stiles’. He paused and shifted his weight uncomfortably, his lips parting and closing a few times. He couldn’t get the words out, wasn’t sure he ever wanted them to go out into the world. Stiles, his best friend, his husband, was standing in front of him, ready to listen, and he could barely let the idea fully enter his mind. 

“After the fire,” he continued before taking another deep breath. “I lost it. My protection instinct, I mean. Apparently it’s pretty common when a wolf loses a substantial number of his or her pack at once. I couldn’t even use it to find Laura after she went missing. It was killing me on the inside to know that I was the only one who would be able to find her but that I _couldn’t_.” He let the idea hang in the air for a moment, his right thumb tracing Stiles’ hand as the rest of their fingers stayed interlocked. “That’s why I was so cold toward everyone, so shut off from the world. I couldn’t make myself _feel_.” His voice was barely a whisper by the last word. “I didn’t think it was ever coming back until that day in the woods when you and Scott were looking for his inhaler.” 

“We weren’t in trouble, though,” Stiles said, confused. 

“I could feel your grief,” Derek explained, one hand leaving Stiles’ and going flat against his own sternum. “I saw you and it just hit me right in the chest. The pain was overwhelming. I hadn’t felt for so long and then all of a sudden it was like a vice was tearing my ribs apart. It took me a few days to realize what it was. You made me able to grieve for my own family.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything? After all of these years?” Stiles asked, the hurt of Derek having kept it a secret lingering for just a moment before it was replaced by the realization that it was he who had helped his husband feel again. 

“Same reason you kept your asthma from me and why I hid my promotion and all the extra money in the Chase account. Same reason you got upset by me asking if you took your pills today.” 

“We promised no more secrets,” Stiles reminded him. 

“It didn’t even feel like one. Not after that day in the woods,” Derek shrugged. “At the time I didn’t want to tell anyone I’d lost it because I knew they’d worry, and I was tired of the way people looked at me. I knew they cared and wanted me to feel relief, but it didn’t change anything. It should have but it didn’t. I wanted to believe no one cared. I wanted to go through it all alone, like some kind of punishment. The guilt…I know what that’s like, Stiles. It’s not even deserved, and yet it’s there and it’s crushing and it eats you from the inside out. I get it, I do. I just think I forget sometimes, and that maybe in-between you being really sick, you do, too. I guess my nagging is more that I want you to know that I care than anything else.” 

“In case I somehow forgot,” Stiles chuckled. 

Derek smirked. “Yeah, something like that.” 

“You know, I could use a nap,” Stiles yawned. “Those red lights don’t have anything on being in a real bed with your husband, cuddled under the blankets until one of the kids wakes up.” 

“I’m sure I could arrange something,” Derek smirked, leading Stiles up the stairs, the diaper bag, nebulizer, and laundry forgotten. 


	7. Communication Breakdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that I have not forgotten you guys! Between my illness, work, and planning a wedding, I have struggled beyond words. Thank you for hanging in there and continuing to read this story! Also, thanks to Casey who sat beside me to beta this chapter at Starbucks. :) 
> 
> I have 10 pages of Hang the Moon to be posted within the next few weeks. You can expect the next chapter around July 4th, as the Stilinski-Hales' will be celebrating with friends, family, and fireworks. Don't forget to comment and leave kudos! I want to know what you guys think!

“For someone about to embark on a 3,000 mile trip to one of their favorite places, you don’t seem too enthused,” Stiles said to Derek once they were settled in their seats, Isaac on Stiles’ iPad and Max asleep in Derek’s arms thanks to Deaton’s tincture. The sound of luggage compartments closing and seat belts being buckled filled the record-breaking silence between them. “You haven’t said one word this morning. Plus, you aren’t afraid of flying, yet you’re sweating. Profusely. What’s the deal, babe?” The pilot’s announcement to prepare for departure briefly interrupted, the plane shifting in reverse as they pulled away from the gate. 

“I’m just nervous about the kids. What if there are peanuts on the plane?” Derek asked, wiping his brow worriedly. “Or Max screeches for five hours straight and I can’t calm her down?” 

“We planned ahead so that neither of those things could happen.” 

“Worrying about peanuts on the plane isn’t a big enough thing to have anxiety over?” 

“Peanuts?!” Isaac asked, suddenly panicked at the thought. The iPad fell from his grip and between the seats as the tears began, his breathing small hiccups as he looked all around him, hands at his mouth, for the offending object. 

“Shh, there are no peanuts, baby,” Stiles reassured him quickly, grabbing the iPad with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. “We told the flight crew. They’re not going to serve any nuts.” 

“No almonds neither?” 

“Not nuts whatsoever.” 

“Promise?” he sniffled, eyes watery and looking up at Derek for confirmation. 

“Promise.” Derek smiled, feeling guilty as ever for not having been conscious of his son overhearing; though he knew Isaac had handled the idea of being around peanuts well at the baseball game, he had to keep reminding himself that that was before they’d discovered more of his allergens. Before Isaac started the allergy shots that they had to bribe him to take weekly. The shots themselves hadn’t caused any reactions, but in the last two weeks there had been a huge change in the way Isaac responded to anything allergy-related. His usually casual reminder of “no peanuts” had become a fear of all food, from slices of toast to something as harmless as a glass of water. He and Stiles had thought they were balancing the anxiety and vigilance, but their visits do Dr. Oslo proved that they were still learning, and re-learning, how to balance the anxiety and vigilance. 

It took Stiles nearly five minutes to get Isaac calmed down and interested in a Little Bear video he had purchased from the iTunes store at their gate just an hour earlier, and it wasn’t until they hit a bump in the taxiway that Stiles realized how tense his body had grown from the possibility of a complete meltdown before a full transcontinental flight. He looked over to make sure that Isaac was engrossed in the video before turning to Derek. 

“Thanks for that,” Stiles mumbled. 

“I didn’t mean to make him upset,” Derek said guiltily. “You know I would never do that on purpose.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Stiles sighed, feeling shame at having chastised his husband without thinking. “I just want something to go smoothly for once. We all deserve a break and I figured if I could put all of the fires out the second they started that we’d be okay. There’s always so much going on it’s obviously affecting the kids. I’m hoping a little beach therapy in New York City and the Hamptons will work in our favor.” 

“You’re sure Scott arranged a taxi from the airport?” Derek asked, the plane lurching forward slightly every few seconds as they wait to be next for liftoff. 

“He said Allison handled all of it.” 

“Why does he make her handle everything?” 

“Is that what this is about?” 

“What do you mean by ‘this’?” Derek grew agitated at the notion that Stiles couldn’t keep himself from trying to figure out the source of his anxiety. 

“The attitude, the sweating, the-”

“I told you about the peanuts!” 

“Shhh!” Stiles warned, looking over to make sure Isaac didn’t hear him. “Promise me you will not say that word until we are safe on the ground in New York. I am not in the mood to play that game for five straight hours!” 

“You know that I have a strong dislike for Scott,” Derek argued. “This isn’t news.” 

“He’s my best friend, Der. After you, of course.” Even as Stiles said this, he knew it wasn’t true. Where had he been when they’d adopted Isaac? Max? During the hospital visits? He hadn’t returned even serious texts beyond “same” and “lol” in nearly a year. He felt the plane pause as they prepared to takeoff, the brake pedal the only thing keeping them from throttling down the runway. 

“Some best friend,” Derek muttered as if he’d had the same exact thoughts, placing earbuds in and setting a playlist on his iPhone, the release of the brake and velocity of the take-off pushing them back against their seats. 

x

After leaving two voicemail messages, Stiles texted Scott from the baggage claim area to let him know they’d arrived, eyes focusing on the tiny ‘Delivered’ below his message for a moment before sliding his phone into his back pocket. They’d searched the arrivals area for someone with a placard reading “Stilinski-Hale Family” for nearly ten minutes while they waited for their bags, but had come up short. It had been a struggle to juggle the kids, Isaac’s car seat, and Max’s stroller/car seat combination, especially since Max refused to be in her seat and Isaac had refused to sit in the stroller, but after having sat for five hours on the plane, Stiles couldn’t blame either of them for pitching a fit at the idea. 

“Anything?” Derek asked, Max asleep and nestled against his chest in her carrier. Stiles wasn’t sure if his husband had meant for it to be, but the single word in his question was a sharp reminder of just how strained things had grown between him and Scott. Stiles just shook his head in response, watching as the belt started moving and luggage began to slide down the shaft. “This is ridiculous. I’m calling Allison again.” Derek sighed heavily as he put the phone to his ear and waited for the call to connect. “She was in a meeting when I called her from the gate, but her secretary promised they were almost done. I knew this was going to happen.” 

If Stiles hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have had room for anger and disappointment. Anger toward himself for asking his young family to travel 3,000 miles to see a friend that could clearly care less about their safety, and disappointment in that friend for having abandoned them at JFK after such an extensive trip. Had Scott even thought about the fact that they’d endured a five-hour flight with an infant and preschooler? Pshh. Who was he trying to kid? Scott couldn’t even answer Derek’s texts letting him know that Stiles had been admitted to the hospital a week and a half ago, and yet Stiles had still pushed for them to go to New York. 

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” Isaac whined, his arms wrapped around his leg, head resting against his jeans. 

“Next stop is food, baby.” Stiles tried to smile, but his own hunger, coupled with his crippling exhaustion, was catching up with him. They’d lost nearly eight hours with travel and time differences combined, and he’d missed his iron pills because he’d been so nauseated on the plane from his other meds. 

“But I want to eat now!” Isaac’s face began to crumple, his breaths quickening. 

“We ate all of our snacks on the plane, Ize. I can get you something once I get our bags, okay?” 

“My tummy hurts ‘cause it’s hungry!” 

“Hey, how about we play a game while we wait for our bags?” Stiles tried, a wave of wooziness coming over him. Closing his eyes, he blocked out everything around him and took a deep breath as he tried to keep the dizziness from growing worse. When he felt somewhat okay, he looked over at Derek, hoping to catch his attention so that one of them could stay to get the bags and the other could run to the Dunkin Donuts behind them and grab a snack. Derek had his phone glued to his ear, though, his words blending with the hustle and bustle of the airport. Taking another deep breath, Stiles looked down at a hungry and whimpering Isaac with a small smile. “Can you help Daddy look for the red ribbon on the handles of the suitcases? Winner gets a bag of whatever candy they want.” 

“You and Papa never let me eat candy,” Isaac said curiously as he looked up at his father, his hand by his mouth again. Stiles noted it and tucked the image of Isaac’s anxiety away in his mind to be brought up later after they’d gotten their bags, something to eat, and knew where they were staying for the night. “Our bags!” the child yelled as he spotted the red ribbons, rushing for them. Before Stiles could even get himself moving, Derek swooped in, Max and all, to whisk him away from the puzzle-like surface of the belt that both father’s imagined doing more harm than good to their four-year-old’s fingers. 

“Ize,” Derek said with a sigh of both relief and exasperation as he let him down next to Stiles, the bags forgotten as they began another round on the carousel. “Didn’t Papa tell you not to go near there because your fingers could get stuck?” 

“Y-yes,” he blubbered, eyes filling with tears. “B-but Daddy said we was playin’ a game and I wanted to win the candy!” 

“I asked you to look for the ribbons, honey, not gather the bags for us,” Stiles explained tiredly, afraid to get down to his son’s level for fear that he’d have a repeat of that day in Isaac’s room where he’d nearly passed out on the carpet. 

“I sorry!” Isaac began to cry, hands in his mouth as the sobs shook his little body. “I sorry!” 

“Shh,” Stiles soothed, knowing that if he didn’t bend down and get Isaac under control they’d never get out of the airport. Getting down on his knees for stability, Stiles pulled his son into his arms. “Papa was just worried, honey,” he assured as he rubbed Isaac’s back. He could feel the room spin slightly when he closed his eyes but willed it away for the moment. 

“I wanted to be a good h-helper,” the four-year-old sobbed. “I w-wanted the c-candy!” 

“You were a wonderful helper,” Stiles explained breathlessly, making eye contact with Isaac and wiping the tears from his eyes. “Just like you’ve been…with Max.” 

“I’m her productor,” Isaac said proudly, smiling at the though. 

“Protector,” Derek reminded. 

“That’s what I said,” the child insisted. “Productor!” Derek laughed, Stiles giving a small chuckle, the mood finally lightening as Derek’s phone began to vibrate wildly in his pocket. 

“What did Allison say?” Stiles asked as he rose slowly from the floor, his vision growing blurry as his blood pressure regulated itself. 

“That she’s going to kill Scott the next chance she gets for not doing what he promised, which was arranging for a car service to come pick us up,” Derek explained as he read the message on his phone. “She’s extremely embarrassed and is sending an Uber that happens to be in the area.” 

“More waiting?” The thought felt like weight on Stiles’ shoulders. 

“ETA is five minutes. I’ll get a text when they’re here. In the meantime, why don’t you take Ize to Dunkin and get something to hold us over until we make it to Brooklyn.” 

“Aren’t we in Brooklyn?” 

“Queens. She said we’ll hit traffic, so I think you should get some snacks for the road.” 

“Let’s go to Dunkin, Daddy!” Isaac said excitedly. 

“Hey, we’ll get there soon enough. I’ll get the bags. Food is the priority right now. Grab something to eat so you can take your meds,” Derek whispered to Stiles.

“How’d…” Stiles thought aloud, his head spinning with fatigue, exhaustion, and hunger. 

“I can sense that your iron levels are low. And your wheezing picked up the second we stepped off of the plane.” 

“Let’s go, Daddy!” Isaac said, pulling Stiles’ arm. 

Derek nodded toward the Dunkin across the lobby. “I’ve got the car seats and stroller,” Derek promised, leaning in to give Stiles a kiss. It felt good on his lips, an ounce of stress melting away as they parted. “Oh, and grab me a coffee, would you? The one I had on the plane tasted like jet fuel.” 


	8. A Constellation of Frustration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! I definitely took a longer break than I anticipated and I am so sorry about that. Thank you for your patience! At the very end of June I became extremely ill and couldn't write or update. Then, I got married, went on my honeymoon, and returned to my summer job. Life got crazy. It happens. 
> 
> Please know that I am NOT abandoning this story. I am requesting, however, that you do not send repeated messages and continually comment about how I haven't posted. I will be posting! I PROMISE! It just takes time to get it all where it needs to be. In the last month, I wrote some 15,000 words. Casey, my awesome beta reader, can attest to that! It takes an immense amount of energy to get this story out to you well revised and edited. I'm an adult with responsibilities. I have a serious teaching job in NYC. I commute 2+ hours a day and pay bills. My schedule is INSANE. I make time to write, but cannot promise a chapter "every Tuesday". Most school nights, I go to bed after midnight. This summer has not been as relaxing as I had hoped, so please bear with me. :) I will get these chapters out soon!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the next chapter! Nearly 4K words! Please comment/review! 

Despite the coffee in his system, Derek couldn’t help but find himself beat. They’d been in the taxi, a mini-van so that they could fit the kids and their car seats, for over an hour, sitting in a standstill. Typical New York City. Checking his phone, though, he realized they were finally nearing Scott and Allison’s in Williamsburg. Just another two miles or so and they would be right where they needed to be. He rubbed his eyes, contacts feeling dry and uncomfortable. He couldn’t wait to put on his glasses, throw on an old t-shirt, and not have to be “on”. “On” enough to make sure Isaac didn’t accept unchecked food from a flight attendant, sense Stiles’ wheezing, or keep the level of Deaton’s tincture in Max’s system even enough to keep her calm in the taxi. Thankfully, both kids were out cold, Isaac clutching Balto, Max with her head to the side and lips parted so peacefully that it made his heart swell. It reminded him that although he’d extended himself to make sure they got to the McCall’s in one, breathing piece, it had been totally worth it.

Soon enough, the taxi slowed before double-parking on the crowded street. “Cash or credit?” the driver asked, and before Derek could answer, Stiles was already swiping his card in the system on the seatback in front of him. Allison appeared at the window with a smile, the trunk opening and driver getting out to help with the luggage and stroller. 

Isaac rubbed his eyes with a whine as Stiles used every ounce of energy left to lift the child’s sleepy body out of the taxi. The kid felt like a lead weight in his arms, but he let Isaac wrap his legs around his waist anyway, Balto’s plushy ears pushing up under his chin. 

“Tessa had a tantrum, so I made Scott deal with it as part of his punishment for falling through with the taxi,” Allison explained, offering to take Max from Derek. 

“She’s not really…good with strangers,” Derek tried to explain, the infant slowly waking as he tried to slip her into the carrier strapped to his chest. “Fangs and claws,” he whispered, hoping Allison would get it. 

“Let’s not forget that Tessa is also-”

“Thanks, but I think-” Derek started before Max began to let out little cries, her fists balled as she pushed and kicked against Derek. Somehow, despite Max’s sobs, the three adults were able to get the car seats, stroller, suitcases, and children up the stairs and into the McCall’s brownstone. 

Derek was relieved to find that Allison had set up Tessa’s old crib for them in the guest room, and he was able to get Max down so quickly after a bottle that he didn’t even let himself think about how she’d probably be up all night because of the time difference once the tincture completely wore off. 

“You guys are more than welcome to sleep in tomorrow,” Allison offered in the hallway as Derek quietly shut the bedroom door behind him. 

“Thanks. I think we’re definitely going to need the extra hours.” Derek smiled as he followed her into the kitchen to grab a tray of snacks. The adults were relaxing on the couch while Isaac sat fighting sleep beside Tessa on a floor cushion in the living room as the two watched _Frozen_. 

“We weren’t thinking of leaving for Out East until the afternoon, so whenever you guys get up we can make some brunch, pack some last minute things, and head right out.” Allison took a carrot from the snack tray and pulled it through the onion dip in the middle. 

“What was the plan for the week again?” Stiles asked Scott beside him on the couch, blinking his tired eyes. 

“We’ll spend four days in the Hamptons so that the kids can enjoy the beach and all of the 4th of July festivities, and then you guys can spend four days here in the city with us,” he explained. “That is, if you’re not pissed enough at me by then for the taxi thing.” Stiles could tell that Allison had ripped pretty deeply into Scott between the phone call and their arrival because of the angry glare he was throwing his wife’s way. He wasn’t his usual jabbering self, either, which actually worried Stiles. Go figure. His best friend treats him like shit for nearly a year, and within fifteen minutes of them reuniting, _he’s_ the one that’s feeling guilty. 

Stiles remembered Scott and Allison’s wedding day, how he had realized that she was perfect for him because he needed someone who could put him in his place. Someone emotionally strong and rational, no matter the situation. Someone who knew that deep down, Scott was good-hearted, that his selfishness just got the best of him sometimes. He needed someone to reel him in when he became a lost puppy, who would love him unconditionally. Basically, someone like Melissa McCall. 

“We can go to the museums and see Times Square if you’d like,” Allison explained, taking more carrots from the tray. 

“Museum of Natural History?” Derek asked, suddenly perking up. He had taken Isaac to the California Science Museum nearly a month earlier and the kid had loved everything space related. He figured maybe the four-year-old would like the space center and the dinosaurs, too. 

“Ize,” Stiles warned, his eyes tracking his son across the table, Derek’s hand coming out to grab Isaac’s as he reached for a cookie from Allison’s platter. 

“We don’t know what’s in the cookie, honey,” Derek said, suddenly aware of how awful he looked, his son’s hand wrapped in his, frozen over the table. “Let’s ask Allison if we can read the box to make sure it’s safe, okay?” 

The situation, though they’d planned for it countless times, had never come up in public before, had never been an awkward pause in a conversation. They didn’t have friends and family at home that didn’t understand, didn’t _know_ their fears. For a while, Stiles had thought that Lydia was in that group, but he quickly learned that that wasn’t the case when she’d purposely filled their cupboard with snacks from the no-nuts bakery while babysitting one day. Her gesture, as well as all of his father’s, had made him forget, had made him comfortable. Too comfortable. 

Isaac pulled his hand away with a whine that both Stiles and Derek knew was a signal that their son was minutes, if not seconds away, from a meltdown, his fingers going straight for his mouth. Stiles knew Isaac was wiped, but he also wondered if he was embarrassed for having been put on the spot because of his allergies. The lack of eye contact Isaac was willing to give anyone told him that was the truth. 

“Let the kid have a cookie, Der,” Scott said, nodding toward the tray. “He’s on vacation.” 

“We have to ask Allison if they’re nut-free,” Derek reiterated softly, eyes catching with his son’s before narrowing as they met Scott’s. 

“Lydia sent me a link to a really great bakery here that has all nut-free products. They don’t use any of his allergens in their processing. I have the packaging if you’d like to see it,” Allison said, gesturing toward the kitchen. 

“Let’s go with Aunt Allie and read the box, hmm?” Stiles asked, getting up to follow her. Isaac trailed behind, his hand still in his mouth as he took one of Stiles’ free hands, his head down in embarrassment. 

“It’s a cookie!” Scott laughed, his eyes and smile mixing into the classic puppy dog look that Derek could barely stand. All of the feelings from the pack’s high school years in Beacon Hills returned in that instant, the simple desire to deck Scott suddenly the only thing on Derek’s mind. 

“It’s more than just a cookie.” Derek worked to keep his voice even and turn away, his jaw set as he waited, knowing Scott would continue. 

“Allison said you would be really uptight about the whole food thing-”

“Uptight?” Derek asked, turning to face Scott, his jaw tight with anger. 

“She didn’t use that exact word, but you guys have been here like fifteen minutes and are already having a fit over a stup-”

“I’m uptight about the “food thing,” Derek explained, using his fingers to make quotation marks in the air, “because this food,” he continued, lifting a cookie, “can kill my son with one bite.” 

“Der,” Scott tried after an awkward moment, his voice less upbeat as the two stared directly at each other. Derek hated when anyone but Stiles called him that nickname, and he didn’t particularly like the way Scott was trying to pull an apology out of him by pulling his eyes away quickly. He hated that Scott had always been good at guilting the person on the right side of the argument into apologizing. 

“Scotty,” he returned, snide. 

“I get that it’s more than a cookie,” Scott stated, but Derek could see in his eyes that he still wasn’t comprehending the full gravity of the situation; would he, could he, ever? Derek wanted more than anything to get up and just walk away from the conversation, but he stopped himself, because he was going to be spending the next week with his child in Scott’s house, and there was no way he was going to play around with this so-called “food thing” when it could turn serious and beyond in a heartbeat. 

“It is actually a cookie, though, Scott. In fact, it could be less than that. A bite or crumb of a chocolate chip cookie, a drop of strawberry Capri Sun. It could be shared equipment at some factory during processing that becomes hives and then before we even know it’s happening, Isaac can’t breathe and we’re jabbing him with the Epi-pen.” The thought, along with his tiredness, grabbed at his throat, causing his eyes to tear for a just a minute before he took a deep breath and willed it all away. 

Derek hated that he knew a reaction would happen again someday and that he could try everything conceivable to stop it but that there was so much out there that was out of his control that it was inevitable. He prayed it would only ever just be hives, that it wouldn’t progress beyond that and they’d handle it with a dose of Benadryl and be on their way. _If only_.

“Papa!” Isaac announced as he ran in the room, chocolate smeared around his smiling mouth. “Allison has brownies, too! And there’s no nuts!” 

“Well, you know what that means!” Derek said with a much-needed laugh as Isaac snuggled into his lap. 

“What?” 

“That Papa gets a big bite!” 

“No!” Isaac giggled as Derek sunk his teeth in to the corner edge of the brownie in Isaac’s hand, careful not to take too much. 

“Mmm!” Derek gloated. 

“No more!” Isaac laughed, pulling his brownie away and sneaking a nibble of his own. 

“We should probably be quiet before we-” Stiles warned, but it was too late. Max began to screech down the hallway, her tincture having finally worn off. Tessa covered her ears in annoyance as she turned away from the TV, Allison’s face twisting in surprise by the sudden change in pitch. It was nothing like the infant’s tiny cries post-taxi ride, and she had never, ever, heard Tessa cry like that. Like she was in searing pain that might never be resolved. Like she _needed_ her anchor. Allison’s heart squeezed, knowing that Derek had warned of this her over the phone and texts, but she had never allowed herself to believe that it was as severe as he’d tried to make it seem. 

“Duty calls. See you guys in the morning,” Derek announced, running down the hallway with the hope that he could calm her down before they woke the entire neighborhood. 

x

“Are you sure we can fit everything?” Derek asked, stunned at how much Scott, Allison, and Tessa had packed for the four-day trip. “You guys do have stuff at the house, right?” 

“Allison has to bring million outfits just in case,” Scott said, rolling his eyes. “And a suitcase for shoes. I don’t even argue anymore. I just let it happen.” 

Stiles chuckled, thinking about how they’d packed one suitcase for all four family members, plus Isaac’s backpack and Max’s diaper bag. Max started to kick her legs in her holder against Derek’s chest with little whimpers. He bounced her on the sidewalk in an attempt to soothe her, knowing it was almost time for her nap. 

“Last one!” Allison announced happily as she hopped down the steps, a fabric grocery bag packed with snacks over her shoulder. She tucked it in and closed the trunk. 

“Lunch?” Scot asked, rubbing his stomach. He locked the car with his key fob. “I’m starving.” 

“I figured we could go two blocks down to that meatball place,” Allison said, leading everyone back into the house. “They’re kid-friendly during the day, and have the most amazing..." she paused before yelling, “Tessa!” as she took in the sight on the living room floor. 

Tessa had Isaac pinned to the ground, her right knee wedged between his shoulder blades, wrists wrapped around his as she held his arms straight behind him. Isaac’s muffled cries tore at Derek and Stiles’ hearts, the room a sudden flurry of activity as the adults tried to separate the two children. 

“He cheated!” Tessa screamed as Scott peeled her off of Isaac, Stiles pulling his son into his arms to help him calm his breathing. Game pieces from Pretty Pretty Princess were scattered across the carpet, and Stiles nearly kneeled on a plastic ring as he tried to calm Isaac down. 

“You’re okay, Ize. Deep breaths. Just got the wind knocked out of you is all,” Stiles soothed as he sat kneeling on the carpet, rocking Isaac in his arms. 

“He stole the crown before the game was over!” 

“But I…winned!” Isaac sobbed, his face red. 

“You _cheated_!”

“Alright, let’s calm down first and then we can talk about what happened, okay?” Stiles coached. 

“I wanna…go home!” Isaac cried, breaths hitching. Stiles could feel his son’s nails digging into his back with fear, little body shaking. 

“Stiles, I am so sorry,” Allison apologized, a look of horror on her face. “She’s been doing this a lot lately. We can’t figure it out.” 

“But I was supposed to win!” Tessa screamed at the top of her lungs, fighting Scott as he lifted her forcefully and took her into her room to place her in time-out. 

“Tessa scared him pretty good,” Derek commented as he came over to rub Isaac’s back, Max snug and calm in her carrier now that they'd broken up the fight. “But I think he’ll be okay.” 

“Might need a puff or two. He’s wheezing,” Stiles sighed. 

“He was wheezing when he woke up. Probably the humidity and change in the air quality,” Derek said.

“He hasn’t wheezed in two weeks.” There was sadness in his voice. 

“He’s fine.” 

“But-”

“But it’s a small wheeze and he’ll take a puff and he’ll be okay," Derek assured his husband calmly. 

“I’m just…nevermind,” Stiles said, putting Isaac down and lifting himself from the floor. 

“I’m going to get everyone something cool to drink,” Allison said, thinking that maybe the family wanted a moment alone. 

“Thanks,” he said to Allison as she left the room. “You’re just nervous, and that’s okay, babe,” Derek assured his husband. “I’m nervous, too, but I’m trying to let the little things go because I want this to be a vacation.” 

“I can’t get myself to relax,” Stiles admitted, trying to hold back tears. “I’m afraid to be off guard. Afraid to let something happen…”

“Let’s just get some albuterol in this one,” he said, ruffling Isaac’s hair, “and put the other down for her nap before our car ride, okay?” 

“Okay,” Stiles whispered back, lifting Isaac into his arms and following Derek to the guest room. He hated that it was barely noon and he was already exhausted, that Tessa could have gotten Isaac into a chokehold had they been a minute too late. This trip, the one he’d been looking forward to for months, was turning into more stress than he’d wanted. Scott was acting distant, hadn’t said more than a few words to him after Derek had gone to put Max back to sleep. For once, it wasn’t married life or kids that were getting in the way. It was Scott, being Scott, and it bothered Stiles to know that he’d been too blinded to see that until now. 

x

Isaac watched from his car seat as the space between houses grew, trees lining the expressway passing by so quickly that watching for too long made him dizzy. Tessa was a seat over in her booster, the DVD player on the seat back in front of her playing a Barbie princess movie that Isaac knew Erica would have loved. He thought about how he would usually agree to watch it because it gave him a break from Erica's energy; she could be exhausting, and though he loved that about his best friend, he didn't really like it coming from Tessa. 

For starters, Playing Pretty Pretty Princess with Erica had never resulted in him getting pushed to the floor and squished so that he couldn't breathe. Plus, she hadn't asked if he wanted to watch the movie, too. Just got in her booster, fluffed down her sparkly pink tutu, and pressed play. He wasn't nearly tired enough to close his eyes, and anyway the music from the movie was so loud that it hurt his ears. He tugged his blue L.L. Bean backpack closer and unzipped it. As he pulled out a worn copy of _Harold and the Purple Crayon_ , he clipped the edge of his spacer, unintentionally tossing the plastic tube with a mask to make taking his inhaler easier, across the back seat so that it landed atop Tessa's pink backpack. 

She jumped when she heard the _clunk_ of the plastic hit the side of her seat and threw Isaac a look of disgust that topped all of the ones she'd given him so far combined. 

"Weirdo," she mumbled before crossing her arms and returning to her movie. Isaac fought his car seat straps trying to reach for it, his fingertips grazing the mask but nothing else. 

"Stop looking at me like that!" she snapped. Isaac didn't think he was looking at her any different than he looked at anyone else. He wasn't actually looking at her, anyway, until she'd said something to catch his attention. "I'm not touching that thing," she added, pointing to the spacer. "It probably has cooties." Isaac didn't know what those were, but they didn't sound good. 

Scott changed lanes and the spacer rolled to the floor. Tessa ignored it, leaving Isaac stuck in his seat with no way to get it himself. Of course, he knew how to undo the buckles, as he was the one who usually clipped himself in, but he'd been warned many times by Daddy and Papa that he was never ever to do it while they were driving. He could feel the car racing down the expressway and knew it would be a really bad idea to let himself out and go searching the floor for his spacer. Asking Papa to get it would be safer. 

"Baby," Tessa grumbled, watching as Isaac eyed Derek in front of him. _I can be quick_ , Isaac thought, his fingers rubbing the smooth fabric of the seat straps against his chest. Without a second thought, he counted to three and undid the first strap before pausing, eyes wide with fear. He could hear his breaths, low and wheezy pants that were sure to attract Papa's attention. It took him a moment to realize that no one had heard or seen him move, not even Tessa, whose head was against the side of her booster as though she was ready to take a nap. He unclipped the last clasp and let himself slide until his feet hit the carpet, eyes spotting the spacer two feet away. 

"What are you doing? Are you crazy?!" Tessa screamed as Isaac took the device into his hands. Suddenly, he felt himself being pulled up by Papa's strong hands. Tears sprang to his eyes. Getting in trouble was scary even though Daddy and Papa never hurt him. 

"You know better than to get out of your seat!" Derek yelled in shock as he placed Isaac back in and clicked the buckles closed. The tears continued, even when Derek took the spacer from him and asked, "Did this fall? Is that why you got out?" Isaac could only nod even though Derek's voice had softened. "I got upset because your car seat is supposed to protect you in a car accident. I always want you to be safe, Ize." 

The child nodded again and felt a cool baby wipe touch his cheek. Derek was gently wiping away the tears and snot running down his face. 

"I sorry," Isaac mumbled weakly. 

"Next time, ask for help. Or wait until we get where we're going, okay bud?" 

Isaac nodded with a small smile. He could feel Tessa glaring at him and it turned him angry. Madder, even, than when Max had eaten Balto. 

Once Derek had assured the other adults that everything was okay and their conversation returned to normal, Isaac zipped his bag, spacer safely inside, and tried to enjoy his book. 

"You can't even read," Tessa commented. 

"I know the story by heart," he explained. "And I can read some words. Daddy says I’m a great reader!" 

"But you can't actually read." The tone in her voice bothered Isaac. Erica was never this mean to him, even when he was in a bad mood and wasn't sharing or being a good friend. 

"Can you?" he asked, pushing the book to her. 

She paused for a moment and then replied, "Of course I can. I'm not a baby." 

"Will you read to me?" 

"That's a baby book," she said, crossing her arms and crinkling her nose. 

"But my daddy reads this to his students and they're in first grade." 

"Whatever," she said, flicking her wrist at him and returning her attention to her Barbie movie. Isaac had heard Aunt Allie yell at Tessa for using that word when they were eating breakfast and there'd been no more chocolate chip pancakes left. 

"How about half a blueberry one?" Aunt Allie had offered. 

"Whatever." 

Tessa hadn't even touched the pancake on her plate, just sat there pouting until Uncle Scott promised to make her some at the beach house that weekend and buy her a new Barbie doll. 

Isaac knew that if he'd ever tried pouting like that, Daddy and Papa would be really sad. He didn't think having a blueberry pancake over chocolate chip was so bad, either. He'd done that tons of times when Gampa had taken him out for breakfast and they were afraid the chocolate chip ones might have nuts. 

He opened the book on his lap and paged through Harold's adventure, forgetting about Tessa's attitude and whining long enough to close his own eyes and, despite the volume of the Barbie movie, fall right asleep. 


	9. Every Inch of Me Is Holding On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is up! I'm trying to schedule myself and get the next chapter out around September 15th. Let me know what you think! I tried to put some fluffy yet quality family moments in this chapter (5K+ words!) to hold you guys over!
> 
>  
> 
> Super big thanks to Casey for finding tons of errors and chunks that I definitely needed to revise!
> 
> Also, I'm looking for someone to do some art for my story. I'm willing to pay, so leave a comment here or message me on FF (cathedralsinmyheart) or Tumblr (heartofcathedrals) if interested!

Stiles had expected a small bungalow with rusted shutters and a cute little sign out front that said something along the lines of "Camp McCall" or “Sea La Vie”, but after turning onto Dune Road he realized just how wrong he’d been. Though the houses weren't mansions by size, what he could see through the windows told him that they were definitely owned by millionaires: stainless steel kitchens, living rooms with white couches, and televisions on vintage brick walls that were bigger than his bedroom. That, and not one of the houses had a sign with a punny or creative name. 

It started to drizzle. Scott pulled into the cobble driveway of a medium-sized, grey-paneled house, put the car in park, and turned off the engine. "I'd pull into the garage so that we could unload without getting wet, but I've got so much junk in there from fixing the house up after Hurricane Sandy,” he explained, and despite the rain, the adults were able to unpack the Chevy Suburban, kids included, in just three trips. 

Stiles loved that the double front doors opened to a spacey foyer with a kitchen on the left and a bedroom with a full bath to the right. A windy set of cherry wood stairs that Stiles would kill to have in his own house stood as the centerpiece. “The island in the kitchen is bigger than our dining room table,” Derek commented as he unpacked their clothes in their guest bedroom and placed them in what had to be a hand-made cedar dresser. “I’m afraid to touch anything! This house is all antique wood and throw rugs! What if Max eats a pillow? Could we even afford it?” 

Stiles was too tired to answer from the bed, his eyes closed as he thought about the way the dark turquoise slab atop the island in the kitchen reminded him of the clear, calm water in Aruba during their honeymoon. The gentle pale gray of the first floor walls made him think of Derek’s personality, how there was both a darkness and light to him, how he always carried sadness with him, but also a deep sense of contentment. 

“Babe?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You’re not feeling well,” Derek said. Stiles felt the king bed shift slightly before a hand rested on his. 

“You want the truth?” 

“I already know the truth. I can _hear_ it,” Derek explained, bringing attention to Stiles’ wheezing. 

“The air here is so thick,” Stiles complained. He tried to take a deep breath, but all he could hear was the constriction in his lungs. “It’s like breathing underwater. It’s gotta be the humidity.” 

“Why didn’t you say something in the car?” 

“Because I didn’t feel like I was underwater in the car,” Stiles explained before taking a gaspy breath in. “Is it dusty in here?” 

“House is spotless. They must have a cleaning lady. Or three,” Derek said, trying to make his husband laugh. 

“Then why do I feel like this?” Stiles groaned with a sigh. 

“You’re probably exhausted. You’ve done more in the last three days than you have in the last week and a half,” Derek said as he went over to Isaac’s backpack and pulled out his nebulizer. 

“I don’t need a treatment.” 

“Your lungs are telling me otherwise,” Derek argued. 

“Let’s just go downstairs and make sure Tessa and Isaac aren’t battling it out over a game again.” Stiles said as he lifted himself from the bed and started to walk toward the door, Derek catching his arm in his hand to stop him. 

“I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to,” he said softly, his grip lessening, “but I do want to remind you that not taking your meds and resting when you were feeling crappy and on the brink of a serious attack is exactly why you still feel crappy right now.” 

“Well, guilt-tripping me into taking meds is the perfect way to get me to take them,” Stiles huffed. There it was, Derek thought, the sarcastic-side of Stiles that he hadn’t seen since Father’s day. He knew it had to be the prednisone again, and the frustration; Stiles had been taking all of his pills and inhalers, had even set alarms on his phone as reminders, but was still feeling weak and wheezy at times. Derek could see through Stiles’ attempts at endurance, knew he was pushing just to do his part in taking care of the kids. It was hard to watch, and though he hadn’t wanted to say anything, he knew that that was exactly the sentiment that had gotten them to this point. 

“Guilt-tripping you the last thing I’m trying to do,” Derek finally said as he looked his husband straight in the eye and let his grip on his arm fall so that he could point Stiles straight in the center of his chest. “And you fucking know it.” 

Stiles winced at the poke and let his eyes drift away, any glib leftover from his previous comment suddenly gone. Because he knew his husband was looking at him with those eyes, the same ones he remembered from the car as he felt the inhaler going between his lips and then again when he’d woken up in the hospital, and it was all too much. He did fucking know it, and he didn’t think it would make it any fucking easier to admit it out loud. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered as an attempt to settle the air, finally letting himself make eye contact with his husband when the words had a moment to stick. “Just…please don't tell Scott and Allison?” 

“That you’re not feeling well?” 

“That I’m doing a treatment. I don’t want them to worry.” 

Derek had to hold back a laugh at the thought that Scott would actually worry, but he did let himself smile as Stiles came back into the room and sat on the bed. 

“I don’t think they’ll understand,” Stiles said with a sigh as he rubbed at the back of his neck. 

“I’ll tell them you’re taking a nap with Maxine,” Derek promised. He pulled Isaac’s backpack over to grab a nebule of albuterol. He could hear the infant fast asleep in the Pack ‘n Play in the corner of the room, her breaths slow and even. “I gave her some of Deaton’s tincture, so she should be out for another two hours or so.” 

“Did I ever tell you that you’re the best?” Derek heard as he filled the nebulizer cup with medicine. He smiled and noticed Stiles looking over at him with sleepy eyes. 

“I just do what I know you would do if our roles were reversed,” Derek explained with a shrug. 

“How do you know I’d actually do all of this?” 

“What’s ‘all of this’?” Derek asked as he gestured to the room, curious. 

“Me. Isaac and Maxine. The asthma.” 

“That’s just four things.” 

“And the house and car payments and mowing the lawn and dealing with the fact that the water pressure in the upstairs bathroom likes to cut out when someone flushes the toilet or does the dishes or puts in a load-”

“Okay,” Derek laughed, turning the nebulizer on. “I think you can stop now.” 

“I was only getting started,” Stiles laughed softly before coughing. He sat up to get it to stop and took the mouthpiece from Derek, his breaths slow and calculated as they waited to see if it would get the tickle in his lungs to go away. 

“Do you realize that you’re always setting up treatments for me?” Stiles asked when he finally felt like he was okay. Derek had crawled in beside him on the bed, his hand wrapping around Stiles’ as they shared a moment. 

“I guess it’s just out of habit with Ize,” Derek shrugged. “I can stop.” 

“It’s kinda nice, actually,” Stiles admitted, leaning into his husband. “And I hope you know I’d do the same for you. I was only joking before.” 

“When your ‘all of this’ was actually only four things?” 

“Well, the four things running your life right now.” 

“Asthma doesn’t run our lives,” Derek said, Stiles noting how he’d changed his wording to reflect the entire family. “It’s part of our lives, but it doesn’t run them. I don’t know how many times I have to explain to you that I’m okay with everything you listed before. I wouldn’t trade you and Ize and Maxine for the world, asthma or not.” 

Stiles took a few breaths of medicine before asking, “But don’t you ever think about what your life would be if you weren’t with me? No kids, no stress. No faulty shower.” 

“I don’t have to think about what my life would be like without you because what I always wanted was a family with my best friend, and I got that.” Derek squeezed Stiles’ hand at the thought, his husband’s breaths through the mouthpiece and the buzzing of the compressor the only sounds in the room. He waited for Stiles to respond and grew worried when he didn’t. “Everything okay?” 

“If you had to ask, then no.” 

“You don’t want ‘all of this’?” Derek asked, suddenly afraid of the answer. The thought had never crossed his mind. Hell, why would it? Why would Stiles, his _husband_ , the one who pushed for marriage and a house and kids, not want this? 

“I want ‘all of this’ minus the asthma and the anemia and Isaac’s allergies.” 

Derek hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he’d heard Stiles’ full answer, the air in the room humid and thick as he took a few calming inhales. “I thought you were going to say…”

“That I don’t want this?” 

“Do you?” 

“Of course I fucking do!” 

“Then why are you scaring me by bringing up what I’d change in my life?” Derek’s anger rose, the topic a sensitive one. What could be more important than family? Hadn’t they agreed early on that that was something you never left behind? “Things are nowhere near perfect but I don’t really want perfect. I didn’t think you did, either.” 

“I don’t need perfect either,” Stiles started before taking a few breaths of medicine. Part of him wished they could stop talking so he could actually finish the treatment his lungs we asking for, but he also knew that it was time to let Derek know why he’d really been so moody lately. “I just sort of wish I didn’t have asthma.” 

“Captain Obvious,” Derek said with a laugh. 

“I’m being serious here,” Stiles said, slightly hurt. 

“I know,” Derek assured him by rubbing his arm. “I laughed because you wish you didn’t have it, and yet it’s the only reason we even know how to truly help Ize. That first visit to Dr. Marmon? You were on point, and I was panicking, which was better than both of us panicking. It could have gone south really quickly, but it didn’t because you knew so much. I spent a lot of time being extremely jealous, envious, even.” 

“You envied my asthma?” Stiles asked, narrowing his eyes as he took a few breaths of mediation. 

“The knowledge. The way you understood. That connection.” 

“The one I don’t have with Max, you mean?” 

“It’s getting there. She let you hold her earlier,” Derek reminded him. 

“Sure, anyway, you just said before that you don’t believe in fate.” 

“I don’t, but I do believe that sometimes things work out. That some shitty things have a silver lining. I guess I just always saw your asthma as one of them.” He shrugged. “For Isaac’s sake.” Stiles didn’t answer, just continued his treatment as he thought about Derek’s words. “And that’s my cue to let you finish your medication and take a nap,” he added, kissing his husband on the cheek before heading downstairs. 

Seconds later, Max started to wake, Stiles struggling to keep his treatment going while also pulling her into his arms on the bed. Between the wires and her thrashing it was near impossible, be he managed to get her wrapped in a blanket and against his chest. He hadn’t meant to, but as Stiles was relaxing again he let a forceful exhale go through his mouthpiece, causing a whistling noise. Max began to giggle, and then Stiles did, too. Soon, he was doing it every few breaths, enjoying the moment with his little girl. 

After turning the machine off, he closed his eyes, feeling Max sprawled on his chest like Isaac used to do, the rhythm of their breathing matching. Instead of tears and scratching, she calmed and nestled her head over his heart. He leaned up to kiss her hair, one of her tiny hand’s reaching to grab a single finger. And it was like that that they napped for the next hour, just a dad and his baby girl. The one he’d been waiting with bated breath to finally hold close. 

x

After lathering the kids in sun screen and packing some bagels and fruit for the beach the next morning, the McCall and Stilinski-Hale families set up camp ten feet from the wooden walkway that led from the back deck to the ocean front. A mix of chairs, sheets, and towels lined the sand, the kids enjoying their breakfast with Allison while the Scott, Derek, and Stiles tossed a football back and forth. It was the perfect way to start the summer, but an even better way to start the Fourth of July. 

To cool off, the guys took Isaac and Tessa down to the water while Allison sat with a beach read, Max napping behind her beneath the umbrella. Stiles and Derek had initially been nervous to be so far away from their daughter, afraid Max would refuse to let Allison hold her if she woke up, but they’d been pleasantly surprised when Allison had lifted the child into her arms and gotten her to laugh at her noises and baby talk during breakfast. It was a relief, actually, to know that Max was making some progress, and they had convinced each other that it would be okay to go in the water with Isaac for a little while because Max and Allison were only right up the beach. 

“I don’t want to wear this stupid vest!” Tessa whined as Scott buckled her in, Derek beside him doing the same for Isaac. “I’m not a baby!” 

“It’s not about that, Tess. You know my rule. Vest or no swimming at all.” Scott tugged on the straps to make sure they were secure before putting his hand out for her to take.

Tessa stomped her foot and crossed her arms, face twisting in anger. 

“I can’t take you out into the water if you’re not going to follow the rules and cooperate,” Scott explained. “You are old enough to know how dangerous the waves can be if you’re not being a smart swimmer.” 

“I’m scared,” Isaac whispered, Derek checking to make sure Isaac’s vest was on correctly. 

“I know, but Daddy and I will be out there with you. We won’t go that far. Just up to our knees.” The child took a few steps back and put his hands to his mouth, his cheeks scrunching as though he was about to cry. 

“Or, maybe we can just run from the waves as they break on the shore while Papa and Scott go out,” Stiles interrupted, lifting Isaac up and into his arms. “Like this!” 

Derek watched as Stiles run toward the ocean, Isaac bouncing in his arms, until he reached the place in the sand where the water met his toes. The second the wave crashed, he ran to beat the flow, foamy white bubbles swirling around his ankles. Isaac was giggling in his bright orange vest, and Stiles was laughing right along side him. 

“Again!” Isaac begged. He let Stiles do this a few more times with him in his arms before he kicked his feet to be let down. Derek smiled, beaming with pride for his son. He knew how much his anxiety held him back, how something as simple as being the hitter on his little league team or touching sand for the first time could be scary. There were so many things he hadn’t done, hadn’t been exposed to, that Derek sometimes felt like he had another infant, another Max, someone who relied on him and Stiles to be a guide in so many tiny but important ways. 

“Papa, watch!” Isaac yelled, his smile so wide it lit up his entire face. Stiles had just unclipped the vest and tossed it aside, giving their son some space to show that he could do it all on his own. The wave rounded, this one bigger than before, and Isaac watched a second too long after it crashed, the tiny bubbles reaching around his knees as he ran with all of his might. It didn’t matter, though; he was happy as a clam in his bright blue bathing suit shorts with little white whales, splashing in what was left of the wave before it receded. “I did it!” he cheered. 

“Yes you did! That’s my boy!” Derek praised, coming next to Stiles and taking his hand as they watched Isaac continue to play in the waves. 

“Remember when we first brought him home and he could barely climb the stairs because he couldn’t breathe?” Derek asked. 

“Things I don’t really enjoy thinking about,” Stiles answered, looking at his husband in confusion. “But okay.” 

“I brought it up because I was thinking about how he has grown so much and become this strong little person despite all of the bullshit going on. And I used to be afraid that he wouldn’t be, because I thought I didn’t know to help him become that,” Derek confessed, moving closer to Stiles. “I guess the funny part is that he’s the one who taught me how to be strong. How to be father. How to enjoy the little things.” 

“He is a strong little dude, isn’t he?” Stiles chuckled as he reflected internally on the last year. Who would have thought that they’d be here, at the beach in New York, watching their baby boy run freely as he soaked up the sun and ran through the waves? 

“His Gotcha Day is coming up next month and I thought maybe we could do something special to celebrate.” 

“Oh, you mean actually enjoy a holiday without anyone getting sick or being admitted to the hospital?” Stiles joked. 

“Yeah, something like that.” Derek laughed, squeezing his husband’s hand. 

“What did you have in mind?” 

“I was thinking Disney, but only if your dad can watch Max.” 

“Sounds perfect.” 

“I’m gonna jump in for a few and take a swim before we eat lunch, alright? I love you,” Derek said before giving his husband a kiss and running for the ocean. With a perfect dive, he entered the water, his arms cutting through the mounting wave with precision until he was up and over it. 

“Daddy, let’s build a castle!” Isaac said excitedly as he came and wrapped his arms around his legs. 

“It’s just sand, Isaac,” Stiles had smiled earlier as he took a step off the deck, planting and moving all ten of his toes in the warm grains to show that it was safe. The four-year-old had hesitated for a few seconds before bending down and touching it with his index finger. Once he had decided it was okay he took a small step toward ocean, a smile spreading across his face as he felt the coarse texture against his skin. 

“Hey, you know what the best part about sand is?” Stiles had asked excitedly, Isaac shaking his head ‘no’ as he continued to lift and place his feet. “You can make anything you want out of it!” 

“Weally?!” Isaac had asked. 

“Mmhm,” Stiles had responded. 

“Let’s ask Tessa if she wants to help,” Stiles suggested as they trudged back up the beach with Isaac’s vest in tow, Derek doing laps in the water behind them. Scott had joined him, but Tessa had stomped her way back to Allison, her vest splayed out on a chair. 

Isaac didn’t respond right away, and Stiles knew it had to be the fact that she hadn’t exactly been very welcoming. Somewhere between calling him names, putting him in a near chokehold, and embarrassing him in the car, she had lost his trust. Now, Stiles was determined to help them bridge it together for the first time. 

After some coaxing from Allison, Tessa agreed to work with Isaac and Stiles to get the castle together. They spent the first half hour relaying buckets to and from the water so that the sand was wet enough to build with, the next full hour devoted to constructing what Stiles promised would be the biggest castle on the entire beach. But Isaac began to yawn as they moved on to the third hour, and although he didn’t want to admit that his arms were starting to hurt from digging the moat, it was decided that it was the perfect time to set up an umbrella and sheet beneath it so that they could enjoy the soy butter and jelly sandwiches Allison had just brought from the kitchen. Scott and Derek had come and gone, swimming between drying off in the summer heat. 

Isaac could barely keep his eyes open during lunch, so after they put him down for a nap, the adults relaxed in four low-set chairs that faced the ocean. With the cool breeze blowing off of the water, constant rolling of the waves, and sweet scent of coconut sunblock, it was easy to fall into a lazy summer daze that put everyone into a pool of relaxation. 

“Where’s Isaac?” Derek asked some time later when he’d turned to check on their son and found him missing, stomach dropping as he rose from his beach chair, eyes darting left and right for any signs of their son’s bright blue bathing suit bottoms. 

Stiles spotted his blonde curls first, watching as Isaac squatted with his yellow bucket in the surf right where a massive wave was planning to break. Derek beat him to the water, though, running and jumping over towels and toys, not even caring that he was throwing sand with every footfall. Scooping Isaac into his arms, he pulled the child away, bucket falling into the crashing wave as it soaked them. 

Derek let his eyes close in relief as he held Isaac close and kissed him on his forehead, the child sobbing loudly in response to all of the excitement. It didn’t help that judgmental eyes from the McCalls’ neighbors followed them the entire way back to their spot on the beach, Isaac’s screaming attracting and keeping their attention. 

“I think someone’s had a little too much sun,” Stiles soothed as he watched Derek let a whimpering Isaac down on the towel beneath the umbrella, the little sniffles and quivering lip confirming his suspicions. 

Derek crouched down in front of him, breathing heavily from panic. “You don’t ever go near the water without Daddy or Papa, do you understand?” he scolded, his voice deep. Isaac pulled away, sobbing starting again out of fear and confusion. Derek covered his face and shook his head when he realized how his reaction had affected his son. He put his arms out to apologize and offer comfort in the form of a hug, but Isaac just screeched and pulled away, deep sobs coming from his small body as Stiles lifted him back into his arms. 

“Shhh,” Stiles soothed as he made his way toward the house and away from all of the people staring from their chars and towels across the beach. “You’re okay. Papa’s not mad. He was just afraid that you’d get hurt.” Allison gestured towards Max on the towel beside her as a means of saying she'd watch her, Derek waving back as a thank you. 

Isaac cowered in Stiles’ arms, his sobbing suddenly interrupted by deep gasps for air. “You’re making yourself sick, baby,” Stiles commented as they ascended the stairs, one hand rubbing Isaac’s back. “Relax. Everything’s okay now.” Isaac began to have coughing fits between gasps, his little chest rising and falling as he worked to breathe. 

“I can’t tell if it’s a panic attack or asthma,” Derek said worriedly as they entered the house, both fathers taking a moment to assess Isaac’s breathing. Stiles could feel his son’s nails clawing into his skin as he held on for what felt like dear life, Isaac’s eyes wide as he looked around the room. 

“He’s shaking. Do you think he’s cold? You didn’t give him any albuterol this morning, did you?” Stiles was starting to grow anxious, the “checklist” of possible problems starting to form in his head. 

“It might be the air conditioning. No, I didn’t give him anything other than the steroid inhaler, and that doesn’t make him shaky.” 

“Is he wheezing? God, I can’t even tell with the gasping!” 

“He’s hyperfocusing,” Derek finally decided after realizing that there was barely any wheezing involved. “It’s a panic attack.” 

"Okay," Stiles soothed as he rocked his son in his arms. "We're okay. Hey, how about a nice warm bubble bath, hmm?" 

Derek went to draw the bath while Stiles held Isaac close and tried to calm his breathing with a technique Dr. Galler had explained during their latest phone call. "Deep breaths, nice and slow," he coached, rubbing his son's back. Isaac complied, his head eventually resting on Stiles' shoulder. "There you go. Easy and even." 

"I gotted scared," he sniffled, his grip on Stiles loosening after a few minutes. "I thought the bad guy was getting me!" 

Stiles hadn't thought of that, and he was sure Derek hadn't, either. 

"It was only Papa making sure you were safe," Stiles assured him. 

"'Cause he's a productor," Isaac said happily. 

"Protector." Stiles smiled, 

"That's what I said." Isaac snuggled against Stiles’ chest with a sigh of contentment, still shaking slightly. Stiles couldn’t help but give his son a reassuring hug and kiss on the head. 

“Do you know how much Daddy and Papa love you?” 

“To the moon and back! One day, I’m gonna go to the moon,” Isaac said as Stiles took him into the bathroom, attention averted from the panic that had been five minutes earlier. “When Papa taked me to the space museum we saw the shuttle.” 

“We’ve got an astronaut in training,” Derek added, glad his son had calmed down enough. Stiles lowered Isaac into the tub and shimmied his bathing suit off. 

“I wanna find moon rocks,” Isaac chattered. “Papa said you have to jump around the moon ‘cause it’s different than home.” 

“Is that so?” Stiles laughed, giving Isaac a quick wash with soap to get the sunblock off. Together, Stiles and Derek listened to Isaac’s babbling, thankful he had relaxed and was preoccupied with a positive memory. 

“He does so well and then suddenly I’m worried that he’s regressing," Derek commented once Isaac was dry, dressed, and sitting in front of the TV watching Nick Jr. 

"Or maybe he’s still dealing with a lot," Stiles suggested. 

“Well, he’s always going to be. It’s not like it all just goes away.” 

“He thought you were the ‘bad guy’,” Stiles said. 

“What?” 

“When you grabbed him. He said he got scared because he though you were Sean.” 

“He knows his name?” 

“No, but after I calmed him down he told me why he was afraid. That stuff Dr. Galler talked about the last meeting and phone call, the deep breathing, worked really well. He opened right up. It was…amazing, actually.” 

“Derek, can you help Tessa and I clean up outside?” Allison asked as she came over with Max, who was snuggled up against her chest with a sweet smile. 

“Sure. Thanks for watching the baby, by the way,” Derek said as Allison handed Max over to Stiles, who promptly placed her in Tessa’s old bouncer on the rug. 

“Not a problem at all. I kinda miss that stage,” Allison mused as she and Derek went through the back door. 

“You let Derek handle Isaac like that?” Scott asked once he was sure Allison, and most importantly, Derek and Tessa, were out of earshot. 

“Excuse me?” Stiles asked back, shocked. 

“You let Derek use that tone with your son?” 

“Well, it’s obvious you’ve never used it with Tessa,” Stiles quipped as he came into the kitchen. “Since the kid whines and stomps her foot every time she doesn’t get her way.” 

“Don’t bring my family into this,” Scott argued. 

“Oh, but you can make comments and judgments about my family? Like you know anything about us?” 

“I know that you baby Isaac-”

“You don’t know the first thing about Isaac!” Stiles whisper-yelled as he got in Scott’s face. “Don’t you fucking dare!” His breathing picked up and he swallowed hard, careful to form his next words. “That kid over there,” he pointed discretely, “that little boy, has been through more in his four years than you’ve been through in your thirty. And if you ever, ever, comment on my methods of calming Isaac down during a PTSD episode again, you can kiss our friendship goodbye. Consider this your only warning.” 

Scott made a sound that was something between a chuckle and a huff. 

“You don’t think I’m serious, but I am, man. I fucking am! Maybe if you had called me back once in this last year you’d understand why I’m so fucking serious.” 

“I didn’t even say anything!” 

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to,” Stiles said. “You’ve never had to say anything to mean it, because your actions have always spoken louder than words!” 

“My actions?” Scott asked like he was genuinely confused. 

“Your inactions!” Stiles said, near tears at the idea that Scott wasn’t getting it. They were stinging his eyes, his hand falling to the countertop to steady himself. “Where the fuck were you this last year, man?” he whispered. 

“Things just got crazy,” Scott answered quietly, rubbing the back of his head as he looked away. 

“Yeah? Well, things got crazy for me, too.” Stiles sniffled, trying to catch his breath. He hadn’t expected so much emotion to come flowing out. He’d thought he had it under control, could keep it inside until he got into the shower. 

“I want a baby sister just like Max!” Tessa announced with excitement as she, Allison, and Derek ambled through the door. “Please, Mommy?” 

Scott stiffened, Allison forcing a smile at the realization that she and Derek had just walked into a sensitive conversation. Stiles looked away and wiped his tears, excusing himself to as not to be rude. He had the sense that Allison would ask what had happened and that Scott would probably lie. By omission. That seemed to be his specialty lately. He tried to let it all go as he let the heat of the shower hit his back, and though most of it melted away, down into the drain, a small, small piece lingered, lodging itself right in his heart. 

x

“You’re seriously still irritated about my comment earlier?” Stiles asked Scott hours later, neon fireworks filling the sky over the Atlantic behind them. Guests had arrived at the McCall house for their annual 4th of July party, hot dogs and hamburgers having just been served and devoured. Every house on the entirety of Dune Road had people covering the decks and beach, all eyes searching skyward. The smell of fireworks filled the air, the rolling ocean waves providing the perfect background music to a beautiful night. 

“You basically told me that I’m not parenting my child correctly,” Scott stated defensively. 

“After you told me that my husband wasn’t parenting my child correctly. So…”

“So, it was rude. And I’m not happy about it.” Scott turned away from Stiles, a plate of garbage from cleaning the barbecue in his hands. He walked to the other end of the deck to toss it, Stiles striding over to continue the conversation. 

“Well, I’m not happy about the comment you made regarding how I handle Isaac’s anxiety, either. You know, when you told me I was babying him?” He shifted his neck for effect, narrowing his eyes in the pale lighting. 

“Let’s just be even then.” Scott shrugged, wiping his hands on his shorts. 

“No,” Stiles argued, shaking his head in complete disbelief. “It doesn’t…Jesus, I don’t know what New York has done to you, dude, but life doesn’t work like that. You can’t just make a comment of that magnitude, get annoyed when it gets dished right back, and then try to avoid feeling guilty of being an ass by trying to push the blame off of yourself.” 

“I’m the one that’s the asshole here?” Scott asked. 

Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced on his heels to keep his ADHD from letting him run his mouth from making this situation worse, because his head was spinning, trying to comprehend how Scott couldn’t understand something so obvious, so vital to the success of their friendship. “Uh, yeah, Scotty. You kind of are.” 

“Then you’re one too for throwing it back at me!” 

Frustration, Stiles decided, was more than a feeling. It was a state of being, and he was going to lay down the law, Sherriff-style. “Ever since I brought my family here, you’ve-”

“Daddy.” Isaac coughed, his hand grabbing for the side of Stiles’ shorts. 

“Go ask Papa, baby,” he said, wanting to finish with Scott. 

“But Balto needs his ‘haler,” he whined, drawing in a tight, wheezy breath. Stiles’ attention shifted suddenly to Isaac’s rattled breathing, face growing worried. He kneeled down and listened close to his son’s not-so-clear lungs before pulling him into his arms and feeling his forehead. Warm. His heart sunk. 

“You’re warm, bud. You having trouble breathing?” His eyes were studying Isaac in the poor lighting, checking for any signs of hives around his mouth. Thankfully, there were none. 

Isaac just nestled into father’s chest and nodded with a congested cough. 

“Stiles?” Scott asked, and in the moment Stiles couldn’t tell if his friend was annoyed or concerned, didn’t really care, because his kid needed him, was wheezing with lungs that sounded like they were near-drowning in fluid, and fuck all if he was going to let anything stop him from preventing another hospital stay. 


	10. If You're Lost Just Look For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! It's been a while, hasn't it? I know I said I was aming to post October 1st. Life and work got in the way, but here's the next chapter! Nearly 6,000 words! I hope that you enjoy it and continue to leave kudos and comments! What do you think will happen next?

"Wanna...watch the fireworks," Isaac half-whined, half-wheezed as he sat on living room couch with one hand on his chest, coughs surfacing every few breaths. It pained Stiles to know that his son was missing out on the firework show that he’d been looking forward to since their plane had landed three days ago. Worse, even, was the fact that he and Derek hadn’t thought about the smoke that would be lingering after the first few minutes until Isaac was coughing in Stiles’ arms, a steady wheeze growing as he worked to catch his breath. And the humidity, which had greeted them the second they stepped outside of the airport and had followed them to the Hamptons, was doing a number on Isaac’s breathing. 

"I know, baby," Stiles cooed as he put the medication in the nebulizer cup, glancing up quickly to make sure Isaac hadn't started crying; that, he knew, would make things much worse. "I have an idea, though." 

“Wanna go...back outside," he hiccupped, tears starting to stream down his face as he tried to turn to look out the window behind him. Stiles screwed the medicine cup onto the mask and turned the nebulizer on. 

"Shh. We can watch the fireworks from right here, baby boy," Stiles explained softly as he adjusted the mask against Isaac’s face. He then wiped his son's tears and kissed his forehead. 

"H-how?" Isaac panted. 

Stiles used the remote to switch the TV on and flipped through the lower channels until he found a news station broadcasting the firework display over the Hudson. 

“These are the fireworks going on in New York City, only we get to see them with music in the background.” Stiles smiled before moving to organize the mess of medication littering the coffee table and place it back into Isaac’s backpack. 

“Don’t weave,” Isaac sniffled, one hand toying with the tubing to his mask, the other clutching Balto, as Stiles went to put his backpack on the side table. 

"I’m gonna stay right here and watch them with you," Stiles assured him, taking a seat beside Isaac on the couch, the two cuddling and watching in silence for a few minutes before they heard the back door slide open. 

"How's he doing?" Derek asked as he entered with Max in his arms, her red and blue pinafore dress scrunched up so that her diaper cover was slightly exposed. 

"Still pretty wheezy. I might have to give him a dose of Benadryl," Stiles explained as Derek sat down on the other side of Isaac, Max on his lap. 

"Papa, look!" Isaac pointed to the TV. An explosion of blue and red filled the screen, Katy Perry's "Firework" playing in the background. 

"You and Daddy snuck away to watch the good stuff!" Derek smirked, Isaac nodding happily now that he felt better about not being outside with everyone else. “Allison said she’s going to get desert going once the show ends,” he continued, Stiles asking if she’d need any help bringing the array of cakes and platters sitting on the dining room table outside. 

As they chatted, Max leaned over from her place in Derek's arms, her little fingers opening and closing as she reached towards Isaac until finally, one hand had grabbed his shirt and the other was flat on his bare chest. 

Stiles was the first to notice, eyebrows meeting as he tried to figure out what, exactly, was going on between their two children. The second he saw dark lines feeding up Max's arm, though, he knew. The infant let go after a few seconds, bursting into tears as the pain she’d extracted took effect in her little body. 

"Max, you're way too young for that, baby girl," Derek soothed as he pulled her away, dark veins of pain traveling up his own arm as he tried to comfort her. 

"What'd she do?" Isaac asked, rubbing at his chest in confusion; for a moment, he’d been able to breathe easier, the warmth that was fading from where Max had placed her tiny hand something that he wanted more of. 

“She took some of your pain as her own,” Stiles explained, looking over at Max as Derek rocked her from foot to foot, deciding how to explain it to his son. “Remember how I said Papa and Max can do some things that we can’t do?” 

“’Cause they’re wolves?” 

“Yes,” he nodded, looking up at a now calming Max in Derek’s arms. “She and Papa can sense things that you and I can’t.” 

“She knowed I was sick?” 

“Yes, and she wanted to help you feel better,” Stiles explained, lips curving into a smile as he thought about how much Max’s little gesture had meant. 

“It means she really loves you,” Derek beamed, proud of his little girl for being so brave and selfless. 

“I love you too, Maxy,” Isaac breathed as he smiled beneath the mask, the baby sniffling. 

x

Stiles entered the kitchen nearly two hours later to the clatter of pots and pans, Allison’s black hair bobbing up and down over the edge of the counter as she fought to shove them behind a door. 

“Need any help?” he asked. 

“No, but thanks” she answered, pushing the door shut. He heard a loud clank before Allison popped up and pushed her hair out of her face. “I hope Isaac is feeling better!” 

“Yeah,” Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head as he though about how Isaac had conked out the second his head hit the pillow; the attack had taken a lot out of him. “He gave us a scare but he’s okay.” 

“Glad to hear it. Hopefully the rain tonight washes away all of the smoke from the fireworks. Not that we’ll get to enjoy the beach tomorrow.” Allison frowned as she began to pull clean dishes from the dishwasher. 

“So we are getting that storm?” He’d been tracking it all morning, but Stiles had forgotten once they’d gone to the beach and the party had started. 

“Yeah, they said it’s going to be pretty intense. We should be okay, though. The dunes on this part of the road held up through Sandy, so I’m sure they can handle the remnants of a tropical storm.” 

Stiles grabbed a dishtowel as he listened and began to dry some of the plates that hadn’t dried in the dishwasher. 

“You know that you don’t have to do that,” Allison added with a smile, going to take the towel from him. 

“I know,” Stiles replied, his lips curving into one as well. “But I’m going to anyway.” He winked at her and pulled away from a second, stealthy reach with a laugh. 

“You really don’t, though.” Allison grabbed a spare towel and lightly hit his hip. 

“I kind of need a distraction, so let me know what you need help with cleaning-wise,” Stiles offered. 

“Distraction from Scott?” 

Stiles shrugged, suddenly feeling as though all of the air had been sucked from the room, and opened the nearest cabinet to put a dry plate away. 

Allison pulled her lips inward for a moment and paused. “It’s not what you think, Stiles,” she said softly. “I know that Scott is self-centered…”

“Understatement of the century,” Stiles mumbled, putting another dry plate into the cabinet. 

“…and that he gives in to every little thing that Tessa wants.” 

“We’re…working on it, okay? Can you just promise me you’ll give him another chance before you guys head out?” she pleaded. 

Stiles paused with another plate in his hand. “Who said we were heading out?” 

“I heard your conversation with Derek before. After you got Isaac to bed and Derek was changing Max. I was grabbing a late birthday gift for a friend before she left. I’m sorry, it wasn’t my business. I walked away as soon as I realized.” Allison’s eyes were suddenly wide and glassy with regret, face half-crumpled in a way Stiles hadn’t seen since her mother had passed. He could sense a deep pain in the way her shoulders were rolled forward, but he couldn’t explain it. “I’m sorry,” she continued, but Stiles wasn’t upset that she had listened. “I should have never been listening to your conversation.” 

“Hey, we’re not heading out,” Stiles promised, putting the plate down on the counter so that he could put his hand on her shoulder. “At least not until I talk with Scott. And I’m not upset with you for listening to my conversation with Derek. The door was open and it’s your house.” She just nodded, her eyes closed as she looked away. 

“I just feel like you guys are having the worst time.” She sniffled, wiping under her eye with the tips of her fingers. 

“Definitely not the worst,” Stiles tried to reassure her. 

“Not the best, though, either.” Stiles couldn’t argue with that, but he refused to say so, especially with Allison so distraught. 

“I know what we need to make this better,” Stiles announced, eyeing the row of wine glasses hanging from the inside of the cabinet next to them. Between Allison tending to the guests, Derek keeping Max calm, and Stiles handling Isaac’s attack, none of the adults had gotten a chance to really start drinking. Scott had managed to nurse a beer while barbequing, but that had been cut short by his argument with Stiles. “We need wine. Stat. Where’s the corkscrew?” 

“Yeah, we’re not fancy enough for a corkscrew,” Allison joked with a deep laugh as she pulled a bottle of Relax wine from the refrigerator and began to unscrew the metal cap. Stiles grabbed two glasses from the cabinet and set them on the counter, half-full dishwasher and drying towels forgotten. 

“No Merlot?” Derek asked upon entering the kitchen with Scott a few minutes later, the two taking in the sight of Allison and Stiles downing the last drop of their first glass. 

“Oh no! We forgot to make a toast!” Allison yelled, rushing to get two more glasses. 

“Merlot is for wimps,” Scott huffed, though there was a playful edge to his comment. “Where’s the Jack?” 

“Wait, are the kids asleep?” Stiles asked, almost forgetting for a split second that they were all, in fact, parents, and not about to start pre-gaming for a night out on the town. 

“Out cold,” Scott commented, pulling a bottle of Jack out from the custom wet bar between the living room and kitchen. _, Stiles thought as he poured two more glasses of wine for him and Allison._

“He speaks the truth,” Derek added, coming behind Scott and setting up two old-fashioned glasses to drink from. “Max must have exhausted herself when she took some of Isaac’s pain after his attack.” 

“She what?!” Scott asked, the most emotion Stiles and Derek had seen all trip coming out in just two words. 

“I leaned over with her and she grabbed his chest. It happened so quickly,” Derek explained as Scott filled the glasses to the brim. 

“Scott’s just jealous!” Allison prodded, poking Derek on the arm. Her wine glass was empty, laugh vibrant and buzzed. “He’s been trying to teach Tessa how to do that for years!” 

“Anyway,” Stiles started, he and Derek catching each other’s eyes before he detoured the conversation to a more humorous topic. 

Nearly a half an hour later, Stiles and Scott were walking the beach together, exchanging stories about beating supernatural forces in high school and visiting each other at college while Allison and Derek stayed behind to keep an eye on the kids. They’d gone ten houses to the left, and then even more to the right. So many, so, that Stiles had lost count. They’d done two shots before leaving the house, and he’d just finished off a heavy cup of Jack and Coke. It had seemed like the more walking they did, the more the silence and tension between them was able to find its way to the surface. They’d been walking for what felt like miles when Scott finally spoke up. 

“There’s stuff I want to say, but you know I’m not good with words.” 

“Maybe just say the first thing that comes to mind?” Stiles knew he was making a mistake the second the words came from his mouth, but Scott was already talking and he couldn’t take it back. 

“Well, it feels like you’ve changed a lot,” Scott tried. “Since Isaac and Max. And it’s weird.” 

“I could say the same about you with Tessa,” Stiles added, and though he wanted the conversation to say positive, he couldn’t help but feel it wouldn't last long. 

“Yeah, but Isaac’s different.” And there it was. 

“But still 100% loveable.” 

“I didn’t say that he wasn’t.” 

“But you said he was different.” 

“Because he is.” 

“You make it sound like a bad thing.” 

“I told you I’m not good with words; I can’t get my emotions out and not have everyone hate me for it!” 

Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but Stiles was starting to think that maybe Scott hadn’t ever really been held accountable for his words, and therefore had never had to think about choosing them carefully. 

“Forget it.” Scott groaned. “I had things I wanted to say and I thought I could say them but I can’t.” He stood facing the ocean, his head shaking. 

Stiles fell in line beside him, careful to keep a food between them, his hands slipping deep into his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should be a better listener, more patient.” Barefoot, Stiles squished his anxious toes into the sand, wind whipping off of the water and blowing his hair away from his face. “It’s just that, some days, I feel like all of my patience has been eaten up. Between work, and the kids, and life, I just shut down. You know me. I’m a pretty patient person, but lately I’m just _not_.” 

Scott stiffened, holding his breath. He parted his lips and turned his head to speak, but quickly looked away. 

“What is it, Scott?” Stiles asked, inching closer. He resisted the urge to put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. 

“Nothing.” Scott took a step away. 

“Obviously it isn’t nothing. Did my family do something to offend your family? Do you want us to leave?” Stiles finally asked, just trying to be honest. 

“No, that isn’t what I was saying! You’re putting words in my mouth-” 

“I _have_ to put words in your mouth, Scott! You’ve been damn near silent for the last year and now you’re right in front of me and I can barely get two words out!” 

“I know I haven’t called much…”

“Much? _Much_?! How about at all, Scott? You didn't call once. Not when Isaac was in the ICU, not when Max came home. Hell, you didn’t even fucking call when I had my attack a week and a half ago! What am I supposed to think?” Stiles’ temper was rising, hands balling into fists. 

“That maybe I have my own things going on?” Scott shoved his hands deep into his own jean pockets and lifted his shoulders as if he were cold. 

“Then why didn’t you reach out and talk to me about them?” 

“Because…” he trailed, looking away. 

“Because?” 

Scott shifted uncomfortably on the sand, ocean crashing a few feet away in the darkness. “Because…it involves Allison. A-and Derek-”

“Where are you going with this?” Stiles asked, suddenly curious. 

“I think Allison and Derek are having an affair,” Scott stated. 

“What the hell?!” 

“It makes sense, Stiles!” Scott argued, his tone rising. “I obviously don’t want it to but it does!” 

“Derek is gay, and _married_! To me, your supposed best friend! And Allison freaking loves you!” Stiles wanted to add the word _somehow_ , but let it go because he was still in shock at the accusation. 

“Are you sure Derek is really gay, though?” 

“We’re not seriously having this conversation right now.” 

“I don’t know, I just feel like he doesn’t fit the definition-”

“Okay, Scotty. Define what makes someone gay, because I’m pretty sure Derek and I have been it since birth.” 

“He’s just not…you know…”

“Not feminine enough?” 

“That’s not what I said!” 

“You think he’s _pretending_?”

“No…”

“You fucking think getting married in California was easy, even after Prop 8 nearly destroyed our dreams? And that adopting two babies with special needs was also a walk in the park? Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you, man?!” 

“It’s just that they are always out late when Derek comes to visit and they email constantly,” he explained. “Allison stays up until 2AM sending work emails, which is really just a ploy for being up late for West Coast time. I didn't think anything of it until she left her inbox up one day and I saw a message from her to Derek saying something about his estate and bank accounts. It seemed like they wanted to run away or something.” 

“Are you on crack?” 

“Even if I was, it wouldn’t affect me,” Scott explained, Stiles shaking his head at the ridiculousness of Scott’s reply, how pathetic and so _it actually was. All he could do was turn away and walk toward the beach house._

“Can you just forget I even said anything?" 

"Yeah, sounds good, Scotty," Stiles said with sarcasm as he continued to walk away. 

"Good, I just-"

"I was being sarcastic! Dude, you can't just say things like that and then pretend it never happened! Like the parenting thing earlier. But this? A fucking affair? Something is seriously wrong with you if you think you need to make shit like this up to keep yourself from feeling guilty." Stiles paced across the deck before entering the house, gears turning as he thought about the situation. Not that he believed it to be true. It _couldn’t_ be. 

x

“Scotty here just tried to tell me that you two are seeing each other,” Stiles chortled as he entered through the back sliding glass door, Allison and Derek’s faces twisted in confusion at their places at the dining room table, Scott entering a second later. 

“You do know that I’m gay, right?” Derek asked, laughing, thinking it was all a joke. “And that I’m married? To a man? To your _best friend_?”

“Scott, you better not be serious,” Allison warned, eyes flaring with disapproval. 

“You kept meeting for lunch and dinner when he came for work. You’d be out late some nights, and then you had all of those emails and texts to Derek about estates and bank accounts and it just seemed like maybe…” he trailed nervously, realizing no one was believing his story. 

“He thinks you guys are planning to run away together,” Stiles continued, using his hands for comedic effect. Allison and Derek stared in confusion. "Yeah, Steve Miller Band style," he continued. "Take the money and run! It's actually a pretty good plan-"

"Except that there is no plan," Allison stated sternly, Scott opening his mouth to explain. "No," she stopped him. "I don't even want to hear what you've conjured in that brain of yours regarding this crazy anxiety!" 

“Allison has been helping me track the Hale family fortune,” Derek interjected calmly. “When it was stolen a while back, we thought everything had been taken, but it turns out we had a vault of fine art in New York.” 

“So I’ve been helping Derek verify and value each piece,” Allison added. “Which required meetings, emails, and texts.” 

"Because you're a curator." The statement rolled off of Scott's lips, the understanding that everything he'd been busying himself with for the last few months was all a complete misunderstanding. One that he’d just pulled Stiles into. Had he really tried to tell him that Derek might not be gay? Had he really allowed himself to be so…delusional? 

"I didn't say anything to you, Scott, because we didn't know if Derek legally owned all of the art. Peter would have tried for a cut if he heard through the grapevine, and we didn't want to take the chance." 

"But you knew?" Scott asked Stiles. 

"Derek?” Stiles asked, voice barely a whisper, his eyes catching his husband’s. He could feel the air conditioning cooling his wet clothes, his legs suddenly weak beneath him. Secrets. Vaults of art. Family fortunes. 

“I wasn’t allowed to tell you,” Derek tried, moving closer. “My lawyer made me sign paperwork stating that I couldn’t let anyone outside of the curator and him know until we were sure. I know we promised not to keep secrets and it’s been eating me from the inside out since I signed that damn paperwork! I wanted to tell you! You know me well enough to know that I wanted to!” 

“H-how much?” Stiles asked, gripping the back of a chair for support. 

“My last estimate was in excess of 15 million,” Allison added. 

“15…million?” Stiles couldn’t breathe, and this time, it wasn’t his lungs. Panic gripped his throat, causing him to cough. His damp clothes clung to his body as Derek sat him in the chair he’d been leaning on. Stiles closed his eyes, berating himself for even panicking at all. 15 million! They could pay off their house and cars. Hell, they could _move and buy new cars and send both kids to college!_ It was good news, and yet, he couldn’t get himself to stop the growing sense of fear surrounding the subject. 

“Stiles?” Derek asked a moment later when he was sure his husband had calmed down enough to take a few sips of water Allison had brought over. 

“I’m okay,” he said, his hand shaking as he tipped the glass to his lips again. 

“I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.” Derek looked up and glared at Scott. 

“Well,” Allison said, breaking the tension in the room. “Now that we know Derek and I aren’t running off with either of our family fortunes, I think it would be best if we all tried to get some sleep. Yeah?” 

x

Max’s fussing began before the first cough echoed down the hallway from Isaac’s guest room. Derek’s eyes opened at the first of the coughs, their sound growing croupy and congested as the minutes passed. Max’s cries grew into wails from her Pack ‘n Play, signaling that she sensed Isaac was having another attack. 

“I’ve got the baby,” Derek said, yawning as he slowly rolled out from beneath the covers. Stiles did the same on the opposite side of the bed, his feet shuffling across the wooden floorboards on autopilot as he made his way toward Isaac, eyes blinking in the darkness. 

“Daddy,” Isaac whined when Stiles arrived, a string of coughs following. Stiles flicked the bedside lamp on and tried to assess the situation based on Isaac’s pallor. His blue eyes were glassy in the light, blonde curls matted from sleep. The red tint in his cheeks was deep, making Stiles realize that Ize’s attack had been going on long before the coughing had woken them up. 

“Hang on, baby,” Stiles soothed as he leaned across to the bench antecedent the bed and pulled the child’s inhaler and spacer from his backpack. 

“Everything okay?” Scott asked suddenly from the doorway, hand stroking his dark beard as he took in the sight of Isaac with concerned eyes. Stiles’ jaw tightened. He wished that Scott wasn’t there, watching and making judgments. 

“Yeah, it’s just another attack,” he said with a small wave as he sat beside his son, secured the mask and spacer contraption against Ize’s face, and pressed down on the canister. Two small inhales of the medication caused a wave of chesty coughs that had Stiles helping Isaac sit up away from the pillow. When he realized Scott wasn’t leaving, he added, “You can go back to bed. I’ve got this.” 

“Where’s Derek?” Scott ignored Stiles’ comment and moved deeper into the room, finding a place to sit on the bench beside Isaac’s backpack. 

“Handling Max,” Stiles explained, too tired to argue with Scott anymore. “She gets worked up when Isaac is sick, so we tend to keep them separated until we can settle things.” As he said this, Stiles could hear Max screeching down the hall, an image of Derek with her beneath his shirt and pacing between the glass doors and their bathroom filling his mind. How they hadn’t woken up all of Dune Road by now, he wasn’t sure. 

Stiles’ attention returned to Isaac, who began to sniffle between wheezes, one of his hands the only thing holding his son’s sleepy body up in the bed. “B-Balto! Where’s Balto?” he cried, tears streaming down his cheeks, one hand twisting the front of his pajama shirt as he fought to control his breathing. “He needs his ‘haler!” 

A pit of defeat briefly settled in Stiles’ stomach at the thought that Isaac was definitely regressing back to using Balto as a platform; he hated that Derek's comment from earlier was proving to be true. He thought maybe it was because his asthma was suddenly public in a way it hadn’t been before; they were 3,000 miles from home and he was having an attack in the middle of the night in front of a person he’d just met two days ago. It took Stiles a few moments to find the fluffy wolf beneath the sheets and hand it over, Isaac a mess of tears, snot, and long, drawn-out wheezes. 

“I think Balto needs a treatment, baby,” Stiles announced, rubbing his son’s back in the small, soothing circles that he wished could do more than they did. 

“No!” Isaac whimpered, which threw him into a coughing attack that had him dry heaving with the tail end of each horrifying cough. His son was in his arms instantly, Stiles’ feet moving toward the doorway and bathroom, but it was too late. 

Scott had grabbed the small garbage pail by the doorway and met them in the middle of the room, the rim of the plastic beneath Isaac’s face just in time for him to start spewing a mix of bile and saliva. 

“Oh, Ize,” Stiles soothed, making sure his son was sitting up enough in his arms that he wouldn't start choking, the vomiting having thrown him into a new level of hysterics that included sobs and gasping. 

“I can get the nebulizer ready,” Scott proposed, a wad of tissues from the nightstand suddenly appearing in his other hand. He scooped the mess around Isaac’s mouth and chin and threw it into the garbage without a second thought. 

“Do you remember how?” Stiles asked, realizing too late that he should have just said _thank you_.

Scott just nodded as he handed the garbage pail over to Stiles, Isaac’s next severe coughing fit causing another round of dry heaving. 

“He’s not usually like this,” Stiles found himself explaining as he maneuvered Isaac and the garbage pail back to the bed, though he wasn’t sure what to add after such a statement. His brain was foggy from lack of sleep and Isaac’s retching was preoccupying his senses. He wanted to ask where Allison was, but the sound of her footsteps passing through the hallway was enough of an answer. A moment later, he heard her and Derek conversing, the volume of Max’s sobs lowering an octave. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles offered, cradling Isaac and the garbage can in his arms. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Scott promised softly as he gathered the pieces to the nebulizer and brought them over to the nightstand. 

“My son just barfed all over you and you’re still willing to wrangle with the nebulizer at three in the morning, so I think some thanks are in order.” 

“No!” Isaac interrupted with a sob at the sight of the mask, his coughing subsiding briefly to give way to wheezing. 

“Ize, honey,” Stiles tried to soothe, surprised that his son was giving him such a hard time about the machine. “You do this in your sleep all the time,” he tried to joke, but Isaac was past that point, his crying and thrashing so incessant that it was starting to remind Stiles of one of Max’s tantrums. “If we don’t do a treatment you’ll have to go to the hospital.” 

“T-tessa said…I was…s-stupid…’cause I couldn’t…breave after the fireworks…and…and…she said…Mr. Fishy was… _weird_!” he sobbed between breaths, chest retracting with each inhale. 

“Did not!” she whined from doorway, but it was obvious from the way her eyes averted Scott’s, who were pinned on her since he’d heard her voice, that she was lying. 

“I think I know what’s going on here,” Stiles said softly as he adjusted a misting Mr. Fishy over Isaac’s nose and mouth and checked that the strap wasn’t too tight. “Remember when you used to get scared by your asthma, Isaac?” He nodded as Stiles rested him against a stack of propped pillows, the medicine finally filling his lungs and granting him enough relief to calm him down. 

“And you were afraid of the wheezing and the mask and the medicine?” More nodding. “Maybe we can tell Tessa about it so she isn’t so afraid anymore, either, hmm?” he offered, looking to Isaac, and then Scott, for approval. 

“I used to have asthma, too, Tess,” Scott interjected as he pulled her into his arms and then onto his lap on the twin bed across from Isaac’s. “Before the bite. Grandma used to stay up with me all night after an attack to make sure I was okay.” 

She looked at Scott, and then to Isaac. “Why’s he making that sound?” Tessa asked timidly, referring to Isaac’s wheezing beneath the mask. Scott paused, unsure of how to answer. Stiles could see him thinking, knew there were images and diagrams of the lungs and their intricacies flooding his mind, but knew that the words might not come. 

It made Stiles think that maybe he had been right about what he’d said regarding Scott and his actions. That they’d always spoken louder than words because Scott had never been good with words, never had a knack for articulating his thoughts and feelings. After their walk on the beach, and the crazy accusations and truths, Stiles couldn’t help but think that maybe Scott was the one who needed the most help. Because as lost as Stiles’ family had been in the last year, Scott, somehow, suddenly seemed worse-off. And Stiles wasn’t exactly sure _why_. Just _knew_ that something was hiding deep within his friend, and knowing that was the only reason he hadn’t run off with his family yet. Maybe it was the way Scott was holding Tessa at that very moment, like he wanted to squeeze her and fix something, but was holding back so much that it was Tessa that had snuggled herself deep in his arms. Or maybe it was the brief flash of terror in Scott’s eyes when his daughter had asked him to explain something and he’d fallen short. Either way, it terrified Stiles. Terrified him because even if he didn’t want to, he knew for sure now, that something serious was going on with Scott. 

“It’s because the muscles in his lungs have the hiccups,” Stiles explained, gaining Tessa’s attention as he raised Isaac’s shirt just enough to expose his minor chest retractions. “We all have little roadways in our lungs called airways that lets the air we breathe drive around like cars. Your airways are always open like this,” Stiles explained, lifting a rounded hand up to show her. “But sometimes Ize’s muscles get the hiccups and go from normal size to really small,” he continued, closing his fist a few centimeters. “When that happens he feels like he can’t breathe because he can’t get enough air through the little roads in his lungs.” 

“The cloudy stuff around Isaac’s mask is medicine that helps stop the hiccups so he can breathe easier,” Scott added, eyes meeting Stiles’. “I had to do the same thing when I was your age.” 

“Really?” Tessa asked, looking up at her father. 

“Yup. Twice a day for my whole life until I got the bite. I had take my inhaler like the one behind Uncle Stiles everywhere I went, too, in case I had an attack like Isaac.” 

“But then when you were a wolf you didn’t need it anymore?” 

“Just a few times after becoming a wolf, but that was a long, long time ago,” Scott assured his daughter, not wanting to think about Theo or the Dread Doctors or the way he had almost forgotten what it was like to struggle for air until his senior year. 

"He should be okay now. Thank you, Scott, for your help. I appreciate it." Stiles pushed his fingers through Isaac's curls and watched his eyes close. 

"Let me know if you need anything," Scott said as he lifted Tessa into his arms and left the room. "Night." 


	11. When It Rains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is here! I have a LOT planned for the few more chapters we have to go in Hang the Moon. I am thinking of writing a third (and final) fic in this series, possibly in the future. What do you guys think?

The rain was coming down in sheets by eight the next morning, the thunder rattling the house making it nearly impossible for anyone to stay asleep. Tessa had made her way into Scott and Allison’s bed some time after Isaac’s attack, and Stiles had slept next to Isaac on the tiny twin bed of his guest room, the pillows propped so that he could breathe easier. Stiles had given his son another treatment in his sleep as a precaution, a chance at easing the pit of worry settled in his heart at six in the morning. Isaac had only fluttered his eyelids once, finally getting the rest Stiles knew he wouldn’t be getting himself until that awful wheeze disappeared. 

Clad in pajamas, the Stilinski-Hale family made their way down the stairs for breakfast. The house was dark for morning and the storm raging outside had dropped the temperature overnight. Stiles settled Max on a blanket on the plush carpet, the infant too exhausted from having been up all night to protest. 

“Power’s out,” Scott commented from the top of the stairs, flipping the hallway switch on and off to prove it. Tessa was on his back, her arms wrapped around his neck, head leaning on his shoulder sleepily. “Do you still have those candles, Al? It’s not that dark, but who knows how long we'll be like this.” 

“Are they scented?” Derek asked. He was holding a still-wheezing, sleepy Isaac in his arms, the child’s legs wrapped around his belly as he rocked him back and forth to comfort him from his breathing and the storm. 

“I’ll have to check,” Allison said as she began to pull ingredients for pancakes from the cabinet. “But if they are, we won’t light them. I know Ize isn’t feeling great and I don’t want to make him worse.” 

“He sounds like he needs a treatment,” Stiles said, rubbing his son’s back. “He’s due for one in about an hour, but I guess that’s not going to happen anytime soon.” He nodded toward the light fixtures above them. 

“What about a hot shower or bath? My mom used to steam up the bathroom when I was little,” Scott said softly as he descended the stairs.

“Is your heater electric?” Derek asked. 

“No, gas. After Hurricane Sandy, Allison and I converted. We had to make some repairs and it was so cold while we were staying here without electric that the water pipes started to burst. Talk about expensive,” Scott explained, letting Tessa down on the couch. She curled into a ball and pulled the throw blanket at her feet over her tiny body. 

"I found a ton of tealight candles from Tessa's birthday party a few years ago," Allison said as she entered the room with a large cardboard box in her arms. "I can light a few just to keep the cold thoughts away, but I don’t think we’re getting power back by dinner time."

"I guess we're getting the remnants of that tropical storm. Bummer. I really wanted another beach day." Scott sighed. 

"Well, a rainy day never hurt anyone. We'll stay in pajamas and make pancakes, play some games, maybe take a nap. We'll make it fun." Allison smiled. She took a few candles out of the box and found a lighter in the drawer. 

“Papa,” Isaac whined from his place in Derek's arms, one hand rubbing his chest as he coughed. “The elephants!” 

“I know, baby. We just did your inhaler, though, and it won't be time for it again until lunch,” he replied with a sigh. “How about I read you a book?” 

"No," Isaac grumbled, hiding his face in Derek's shirt. 

“How about that steam?" Stiles asked, not happy with the way Isaac's back was rising and falling with his quick breaths. 

"Let's give it a shot," Derek suggested, adjusting Isaac in his arms. "I feel like we're reaching a tipping point with his breathing and with the weather like this, I don't want to take any chances. If this doesn't help, we might have to take him to the ER. Get him a treatment." 

"I can keep an eye on Max," Allison offered, overhearing their conversation. 

"Let me know if she wakes," Derek said, though he knew he'd be able to hear her if she did; comments like this seemed to comfort Allison. She’d been such a big help with Max, and if it weren’t for her eagerness, Derek would have declined her offers. 

"Take these candles. It's probably pitch black up there." She handed Stiles three votives and an extra lighter, her hand wrapping around his wrist to stop him as he went to follow Derek up the stairs. "And let me know if there's something I can do to help," she whispered. 

x

"Stiles is upstairs with Ize. We're trying to get him to relax with a movie on the iPad to get his mind off of things," Derek said as he sat at the kitchen table with Allison, Scott, and Tessa, pancakes, eggs, and potatoes on platters for everyone to pick at. 

"He doing any better?" Scott asked, stacking cut pieces of pancake onto a fork. 

"A little, but I don't think it'll be enough. I hope the power comes back on in the next two hours. He really needs that breathing treatment. If it doesn't, we might have to find a place with power or take him to the ER." 

"We've got a flash flood warning in effect, but my Suburban should be able to power through it if need be," Scott said. Derek just nodded, looking over his shoulder to make sure Max was still sleeping. She was just where Stiles had left her, tiny lips parted as she slept soundly. 

"Eat up," Allison pushed, Derek turning back to his plate. In the center of the table was orange juice in a glass carafe, butter placed on a colorful dish, and syrup in a metal saucer. It was unlike any Stilinski-Hale breakfast they'd ever had at their own house, with Frozen character-themed plates, cups, and cutlery. He smiled as he thought about Stiles' Yoda coffee cup, the one present for every Saturday and Sunday family breakfast, and wished his husband could be beside him instead of upstairs helping their son stay comfortable and breathing. 

x

"Daddy!" Isaac cried, his face red and stained with tears as he fought to breathe. "Pa-pa!" 

"We know it's hard, Ize. Let's try your inhaler again-" Stiles tried. 

"No!” His cry was barely a whisper as he pushed the medication in Derek's hands away. 

"I think we need to start thinking about the ER," Derek admitted, taking Isaac in his arms and rocking him back and forth. "You have to calm down, baby. You're making your breathing worse." 

"Hurts," Isaac said with a sniffle. 

"Maybe if we bring him downstairs, keep him comfortable," Stiles thought aloud. "If we can get him to do another round of the inhaler and steroids, we might be able to hold him over until the power comes back." 

"We didn't give him the steroids yet," Derek said, thinking that the idea could work. Stiles dug through Isaac's bag and took out the bottle of Orapred, Derek thinking of the first time he'd looked the side effects of the medication up. Had that really been almost a year ago? "It's worth a shot." 

"Balto," Isaac said, reaching for the stuffed wolf on the bed. 

"Got him." Stiles smiled, trying to cheer his son up with the toy. Isaac just turned his head away and started to cry again. 

"We're gonna fix it, honey," Derek said as he started for the stairs, the child's wheezing catching everyone's attention by the time they got to the bottom. 

"Poor kiddo," Allison commented as she wiped down the kitchen counter. "Are you sure there's nothing Scott and I can do to help?" 

"I think if Scott and I work together to take some of his pain away that we might be able to stabilize him," Derek said. They settled Ize in Stiles' arms after a few puffs from his inhaler and a spoonful of the Orapred. The child was wrapped loosely in a blanket, his face pale and cheeks rosy as he continued to whimper between strained inhales. 

"I can help," Scott said as he sat on the edge of the couch, ready to take Isaac's hand in his. Stiles looked up at him, his eyes hopeful. 

The process went on for nearly twenty minutes. Dark lines ran up Derek and Scott's arms as they pulled every ounce of suffering possible from Isaac's body. While it couldn't take all of his pain away, it was enough to have him calmer and breathing deeper, eyelids fighting sleep. 

"Go ahead, honey. You can close your eyes," Derek soothed, pulling one last bit of pain before he let go. Scott did the same, the room silent as Isaac fell asleep, mouth open to help him take in easy breaths. 

It happened slowly. First, Stiles nodded off, then Scott on the couch across the room, Tessa in his arms. Derek fed Max a bottle and some cereal before his own eyes closed, Allison finally joining Scott and Tessa by pulling a blanket over and snuggling in. 

By the time Stiles woke nearly two hours later because of Max starting to fuss, Isaac was wheezing and coughing again, the rain, thunder, and lightning churning outside with newfound force. 

"Mr. Fishy," Isaac whined between breaths, squirming uncomfortable in Stiles' arms. No one but Stiles could hear, though, because Max was screeching, causing the McCall's to wake on their couch across the room. 

"What'd he say?" Derek asked, trying to bounce Max as he lifted from the couch. She refused to calm, her hands coming out to beat at his chest, legs kicking. 

"He's asking for a breathing treatment!" Stiles yelled over Max's screeches. The second the words registered with Derek, Stiles could read the defeat in his face. They were finally at that tipping point, and they were going to have to make a decision. 

Derek decided to let Max near Isaac, remembering the fourth of July and how she'd tried to take his pain. He wondered if she'd calm down, feel more in control, if he took enough of the pain to let her think she was doing all of the work. Stiles looked at him questioningly as he watched Max place a flat palm on Isaac's heaving chest. 

"She's too little!" Tessa yelled, but in that instant, Max stopped screeching and let Derek hold her up against her brother. Having the infant think she was in control was just the thing to calm her down. 

"Maxy," Isaac said with a small smile even though he was still struggling. She smacked her lips, her way of throwing a kiss, and Derek pulled her away just a few inches so that she could be propped on the couch beside Stiles. 

"That was so sweet, baby girl," Stiles cooed. "You are such a caring little sister." 

"Good job, Max," Derek said with a smile, the infant clapping her hands happily. 

"The elephants," Isaac said, his voice weak. 

"Elephants?" Scott asked. 

"It means it's getting really hard for him to breathe. We should get the car started and find the nearest ER." Derek sighed. 

“I wanna watch a movie!” Tessa grumbled, pulling on Allison’s sweater. 

“There’s no power, honey.”

“But Daddy has that box in his car so that I can watch movies!” She whined as though on the verge of a tantrum. 

“I have a converter in the car," Scott said, like it was the first creative idea he’d ever had. "The kind that goes into your cigarette lighter,” he continued, Stiles and Derek both eager to see where he was going with the information. “Maybe we can plug his nebulizer in.” 

“That’s actually a really, really good idea,” Derek said, surprised that Scott, of all people, had come up with it. 

x

Stiles held Isaac on his hip in the doorway, the rain heavy as it fell from the gutter, the street a moving river brimming just over the curb and into the grassy bushes. He was glad they had stayed and weren’t driving back to the city in the storm, but he was also aware of how quickly the water level on both the ocean side and street side of the house had grown. Though the house was propped on a strong support system, the car, he knew, was not. 

“We’re gonna have to make a run for it,” Scott yelled over a thunder roll as he pulled his hood up and adjusted the backpack with the nebulizer on his shoulder. Stiles did the same with his hood, covering Isaac with the towel Allison had given him. “On three?” 

“Three!” Stiles yelled, the two running for the unlocked Chevy Suburban sitting at the end of the driveway. They scrambled to get out of the rain, Stiles struggling with Isaac in his arms. The drops were so big that they clouded his vision, and he was thankful Scott had been the one carrying the backpack. Once inside, they wiped themselves as dry as possible, Scott starting the truck. 

Isaac began to cough and Stiles adjusted him so that he was comfortable in his arms, dry and wrapped in his blankie for warmth, Balto tucked in his lap. Scott assembled the converter, machine, and medication cup, the mask misting within a minute or so of them having left the rain. The heat was on low, which made Stiles happy because he was shivering slightly from the cool rain droplets that had soaked through his pants. It didn’t matter that the windows were fogging up; this was the coldest summer day Stiles had ever witnessed. He could still feel the deep humidity, the moisture lingering in the air, and he knew that anything hotter would make his son’s breathing worse. 

“Better?” Stiles asked, taking in his son’s sweet blue eyes after he had a few good breaths of medicine from the mask. Isaac nodded and closed his eyes. Stiles kissed him on the head, letting his lips linger for just a moment extra, and pushed a hand through his curls. “Thank you,” he whispered to Scott, willing the tears brimming his eyelids away by turning toward the window. 

“No biggie,” Scott said, pushing one hand through Isaac’s hair as he slept. 

“It _is_ a biggie,” Stiles said, his voice small, the tears pushing. 

“You would do it for Tessa.” Scott’s wet sweatshirt moved against the leather seat as he shrugged, mixing with the hum of the nebulizer and rain. 

Stiles gulped in a breath of air to keep himself from sobbing, emotions suddenly overtaking him. He could already hear Isaac’s lungs relaxing, the wheeze dissipating and his inhales growing easier. Experience had taught him that Isaac’s attack the night before, coupled with his condition that morning, would have definitely been a disaster without the nebulizer. It was their family’s lifeline where Isaac’s breathing was concerned, and he knew that if they hadn’t figured something out, like driving through the flooding to find a restaurant or gas station with power, Isaac would definitely be in an ambulance and on his way to the nearest ER within the next hour. 

“What’s wrong?” Scott asked, focusing intently to Isaac’s breathing for a moment. He could sense improvement, but he could also feel Stiles’ sadness. It grew in his chest like a fire, and he couldn’t help but put his hand out and over his friend’s to try and quell it. “Hey.” 

“I know, it’s just…Tessa would never need…she doesn’t get sick,” he cried, tears silent. “She doesn’t bleed for more than a few minutes o-or require a cocktail of steroids and bronchodilators to do something as simple as _breathe_.” 

“Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t do it for her, too,” Scott assured him, and for the first time in a long time, Stiles was relieved that Scott was sitting right next to him, the warmth from his hand comforting the pain in his heart. 

“This year has been so hard without you.” The words cut through Scott like ice as Stiles chokes them out one by one, but he kept his hand where it is anyway. “Getting Ize and being up all night with his PTSD and attacks so bad he couldn’t even talk, let alone breathe. And the hospital stays. _So many hospital stays_. Then we got Maxine in the middle of the night in nothing but a diaper and blanket, and she spent the first month in agony because she lost her first and only anchor. S-she wouldn’t attach,” he whispered, closing his eyes, the pain of the situation still heavy on his heart. 

“Not even to _Derek_ ,” Stiles continued. “And Deaton kept saying she would, eventually. J-just give her time. But she was in so much pain, and she’s still struggling, and it’s killing me.” Stiles took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Ize and Max are the biggest blessings, and I know I had Derek and my dad and Lydia, but it was fucking hard without you, man,” he whispered. 

“I got the voicemails and texts. And the emails. I read them. All of them,” Scott admitted, shifting in his seat. “I don’t have a good excuse, Stiles, because I don’t know if there is one that would even begin to fill the void I created by not being there for you and your family.” 

“I don’t need an excuse. I just want to know _why_.” 

“Somewhere in your crazy year, you made time to reach out to Allison and I again and again. You kept at it even though I barely responded.” Scott looked away for a moment. “I’m just going to be honest and say that I reached my lowest point ever this year. That's why I didn't answer. Allie and I, we went through some really deep…we’re still going through a pretty rough patch.” 

“Rough patch?” Stiles ask, Isaac snoring lightly in his arms. 

“Tessa and I might not bleed for more than a few minutes or need medicine to function daily, but Allison…she’s not like us. She’s human.” 

Stiles could sense that Scott was going to reach a dark place with his confession, something he hadn’t quite been expected as the explanation for his behavior this past year. It was so easy, he thought, to be angry with other people when they didn’t give you what you wanted, didn’t act according to your expectations. It was easy to think negatively when a friend ignored a phone call and never texted at all to see why you called in the first place, easy to turn sour when that same friend said one thing you disagreed with and your started rethinking your relationship with them. Easy to start hating every word that came out of their mouth, every thought you thought they were having. And Stiles was done with all of it. Done with the stress and the negativity and the anger. 

“She has… _had_ a touch of cancer,” Scott said, looking up at Stiles with glossy eyes. “That’s what Allie calls it, anyway.” He tried to smile, but Stiles knew how hard it was for him to do so. “Tessa doesn’t even know. It’s not like...” he trailed. 

“Like my mom’s was?” 

“Yeah." He paused and took a breath. "We were trying to have another baby, but it wasn’t happening, so she went to the doctor. There were tests and the cancer diagnosis and then she had surgery nine months ago. They thought that maybe things could be worked out, that there wasn’t a guarantee but a possibility that she’d be able to have another baby. She cried for days after the surgeon came in a few hours post-surgery and told her things were worse than he’d thought. We told Tessa that Allie had the flu and that’s why my mom had to come and help for a while.” 

“Scott, I’m so sorry…”

“The worst part about this whole thing is that they said they got it all and she’s going to be fine, but Allie…” he started, stopping to sniffle, his hands gripping the steering wheel even though they weren’t driving anywhere soon. “She’s been a wreck about not being able to have another baby, and I promised her that we could adopt or find another way, but she refuses to talk to me about it. She just gives me the cold shoulder and then yells at me about stupid little unrelated things.” 

“Scott..." 

“That’s why she got so upset with Tessa when she asked for a baby sister like Max.” He sniffled, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed the wheel. “And why she keeps pushing to hold Max even though we all know she pretty much refuses to be held by anyone but Derek.” 

“I seriously had no idea. She seems like her usual self," Stiles said. 

“She is. Until we go to bed, or you guys put the kids down. The second you leave she starts her cold shoulder routine, won’t even answer me when I ask if she wants me to help her get dinner ready or run to the store. It’s unbearable, and I know Tessa’s starting to notice. It's why she's been so hard to handle.” 

"I kind of assumed that she was always like that," Stiles said, voice apologetic. "Last time I saw her she was a baby and-"

"And trying to anchor. To a non-wolf mother." 

Saying that she was human only made the fact that Allison had had cancer more real. 

"I think it's going to break us apart." 


	12. Burst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that it's been quite a bit of time since I updated this story. I am so, so sorry. I've been very ill the last few months and it's just made everything horrible. It affects my family, friendships, and work. It makes me a cranky, anxious person. Pain and feeling ill is so entirely _exhausting_ on so many levels. I hate that have not had the opportunity to write and polish chapters for posting. I hate that I've been pushing myself to go to work and get through the day only to come home and fall asleep on the couch. However, I have been getting your comments and they have been little seeds of hope the last few months. They reenergize me and give me ideas. Please please please keep them coming! Thank you for sticking with me, and thank you, Casey, for beta-ing this chapter!

Stiles carried a sleeping Isaac back into the beach house, the backpack strung over his left shoulder. He ascended the stairs slowly, fearful of waking his son. The sheer exhaustion etched into Isaac’s tiny face, coupled with the blotchy redness in his pale cheeks, was only remedied for Stiles by the knowledge that the treatment had been successful enough to stop the child’s wheezing. He sent up a silent prayer as he lay his son down on the bed, thankful that they had medication to help them.

“How is he?” Derek asked quietly from the doorway.

“So much better,” Stiles responded as he tucked Isaac beneath a dry blanket. “But I’m guessing you already knew that,” he added, looking up at his husband with one eyebrow lifted.

“I knew for sure that he was okay once Max began to calm down,” Derek said, coming into the room and sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I can’t believe how relaxed his lungs are,” he whispered as he placed his hand on Isaac’s. “I was sure we’d be on our way to the hospital within the hour.”

“I hate to admit it, but I thought the same thing.”

Derek gently touched his hand to Isaac’s forehead and then weaved his fingers through his hair. “We should let him sleep,” he said.

“Do you think it’ll always be like this?” Stiles asked as he and Derek walked into the hall, his hands fidgeting as he looked back at Isaac.

Derek paused to think, his eyes following the rise and fall of his son’s chest beneath the blanket. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” he admitted. “Sometimes, it feels like illness is stealing everything from us. Like it enjoys hiding in the shadows and waiting for opportune moments to strike. It takes away our time and energy, our happiness, plans, dreams, relationships, and paychecks. And it’s hard not to let it, right? It’s relentless. It’s hard not to give in and slow down and let it consume us. We tell everyone that we won’t let it define us, that we’re fighting it with medication and positivity. Again and again we rearrange our priorities as a family and push through each flare as best we can. It’s not ideal, and most of the time it really fucking sucks. But sometimes we're lucky enough to get a reprieve, a brief period of easy breathing and hive-free living. An afternoon like this after watching our little boy struggle to breathe for almost 24-hours,” Derek said as he gestured toward Isaac sleeping peacefully. “What you two go through isn’t fair or inspirational. It’s heartbreaking and difficult on so many complicated levels. You know I’d take it away if I could. We’ve spoken about that. But in the meantime, I think we need to stop waiting for the next storm to come and just enjoy the calm. We need to start embracing the other parts of our lives...”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Stiles whispered, his fatherly instincts gearing up. He suddenly itched to put a second blanket on Isaac, to tuck the sides neatly beneath his back and push his fingers through his soft curls just as Derek had done just moments before.

“I think we need to try. Because honestly? I’m starting to think that we’re too busy letting it win to actually enjoy our lives.”

“But it _is_ our lives,” Stiles added, feeling hopeless. It was easy for Derek to make such a comment; as much as they suffered through everything together, Stiles’ experience with illness had been so much more isolating as a parent.

“Part of our lives. One slice of the pie. We need to start focusing on the other things, like this vacation, and our friends. The ones downstairs who have actually been a huge help during the last 24 hours.”

“Just because Isaac isn’t wheezing right now doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods.” Stiles could feel his stubbornness turning on.

“Max will start screaming her head off the second something’s wrong,” Derek reminded his husband. “She is deeply connected with Isaac. Now that we know he’s under the weather, we can watch for her reaction downstairs. And if he wakes, you know he’ll yell for one of us. He always does.”

Stiles hated to admit that Derek was right. They did need to take a deep breath and step away from the part of their lives that was medication and anxiety and stress. They needed to stop waiting for the next bad thing to happen and focus on the good in their lives. For a moment, he wondered if maybe he was jealous of how easy it was for Derek to do just that. How could he just shut off the anxiety of never knowing what was coming next? Of worrying? It had been a part of their lives for so long now. It seemed like a constant, and it hadn’t been until just a few minutes ago that Stiles had realized how seriously unhealthy it all was.

But who could blame him? He knew he shouldn’t feel guilty for what they had been through, for what they were going through on a day-to-day basis. It almost felt the same as after his mom had died. Each day, he and his father tried so hard to tread water, to keep their heads above. And some days they had failed and the grief had consumed them. Stiles started to think that maybe they’d been grieving as a family for all of the losses that Derek had listed. Illness could be so relentless, so _ruthless_. He remembered how hard it had been to pull his father and himself out of that horrible grief all of those years ago, and part of him knew that it would never really be gone 100%. Was that the role that illness was also playing in their lives?

“I can see the gears in your head are turning,” Derek commented softly, his hand reaching out for his husband’s.

“It’s just...do you remember what it was like after the fire? Like the months and years following? Was it hard to stop thinking about it, replaying everything? Because that’s what all of this feels like.” Stiles took a slow, deep breath and steadied himself. “It feels just like after my mom died, and I know it’s completely different, but in so many ways it’s just _not_.” He took another breath, surprised he’d let how he was feeling out. “I’m probably making no sense at all and confusing the hell out of you and-”

“I do remember, and I agree.” Derek went silent and looked up at the ceiling, his eyes closing tightly as though to hold back tears. “It was really hard to let any of it go because even though it was painful and hard, it was mine. My memories, my experiences and feelings.”

“That’s what this feels like to me,” Stiles said with a sniffle. He bit his lip to keep the tears away and took slow, calculated breaths. “Like no matter how hard we try, our lives will never be completely free of illness. It will always be waiting, lingering. There will always be doctors appointments and medications and hospital stays. Secretly, I mope about it. I stress about it and become super neurotic about Isaac’s medication and breathing. And then I see other families in the doctor’s office or hospital with something so much worse, and I feel guilty for not wanting be happy that it’s just asthma because honestly? There’s no such thing as ‘just asthma’ and-”

“Relax,” Derek whispered, his voice floating in the cool air of the hallway as he pulled Stiles in close. He kissed his forehead and wiped away the tears running beneath his eyes. “I’m not trying to discount how you feel. I think and feel the same exact things.”

“You’re just saying that because I’m a blubbering mess right now.” Stiles sniffled as he lay his head on Derek’s chest.

“God, I wish that were true,” Derek said with a sad chuckle, his demeanor shifting as he began to shed his own set of tears. “I worry about our babies so much that I’m surprised it doesn’t throw me over the edge.”

“Maybe,” Stiles proposed, pulling his head away for just a moment, “we should make more of an effort, like you said earlier, to enjoy the moment. Even when Isaac’s sick or Max is melting down. Maybe we can do better. For us. For our family.”

“It sounds a lot easier when we say it, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “But now that I think about it, I think the kids might need it even more than we do.”

“This is why I married you,” Derek said, his voice lifting as he pulled Stiles back into his arms. Together, they gently rocked side-to-side as though dancing, a calmness finally between them. There were no more words for a while, just the steady hum of their breathing and the soft creaking of the wooden boards beneath their feet.

x

Derek and Stiles joined Scott and Allison downstairs. Tessa sat brushing her doll’s hair on the carpet, a set of out outfits and accessories spread around her, and Max alternated between shaking and biting a plastic ring of keys atop a perfectly spread blanket.

“Thanks, again, for watching over Max,” Stiles said to Allison. He tried not to show that he knew about her struggles from the last year by avoiding her gaze.

“She’s a pleasure,” Allison replied, and Stiles could hear the smile in her comment. It gave him the courage to look up at her for just a second. Her eyes were transfixed on Max, her grin wide and eyes more full of joy than they’d been in a long, long time; it only made his knowledge of her illness heavier.

Stiles felt Derek’s hand squeeze his, and he wondered if maybe Derek had know but hadn’t told him. Could he sense cancer the same way he could sense anxiety and asthma? They’d promised no secrets, but that had proven to be harder than either of them had imagined. The $15 million dollars worth of art he’d found out about last night had been both shocking and exciting news. This, though, wasn’t Derek’s secret to share, or even Stiles’, and he wasn’t sure if Scott wanted Derek to know.

Because although Derek and Scott had a father-son-like relationship, it had always been pretty strained. As Stiles thought back over the last few days, he realized that Derek and Scott had barely spoken, and each time that they had, the entire room had been able to feel the tension.

He forced the feed running through his brain to stop. He needed to relax, to take a deep breath and enjoy the rest of their quiet, rainy day. 

“Why did Isaac get to go watch a movie in the car with Daddy?” Tessa whined, throwing her doll down and crossing her arms across her chest; Stiles knew that his and Derek’s entrance to the scene had caused her reaction.

“Mommy and I explained this to you before, Tess. We didn’t watch a movie in the car. Isaac was very sick and needed medicine,” Scott reminded her.

“But he already took his medicine in the house!”

Even Max could sense that the kid was on the verge of a tantrum; she’d let her keys drop to the blanket and had her eyes glued to the dark-haired preschooler across from her.

“Tessa, why don’t we go for a walk?” Allison tried coaxing.

“It’s pouring outside!” she whined, pointing toward the window. “Are you stupid or something?!”

Stiles had the sudden urge to take the dolls and dresses from her and throw them in the garbage, his mind already writing the litany he’d be reading to her about what happens to little girls who are fresh. But Scott was already standing up and had Tessa by the arm.

“You need to apologize to Mommy for calling her stupid!” Scott demanded.

“No!” she yelled, trying to yank her arm away. Scott was too strong, though, and because of her frustration she began to cry.

“Scott, you don’t-”

“Allison, we need to start handling this before it gets any worse! Her behavior is unacceptable!”

“Of course it is! But that doesn’t mean we need to do it like that!” Allison argued, pointing at Scott’s grip on their daughter. The second he let go, Tessa began to scream and grab accessories from around her, which she threw across the room in angry bursts. Her continual screaming made Max cover her ears and begin to cry, senses overloaded by the sound. She crawled over to Derek for comfort, who lifted her into his arms and walked to the other side of the house to calm her down.

“Tessa!” Scott yelled, but she was having an all-out tantrum, pulling books from shelves and pillows from the couch and chucking them wherever she saw fit. Stiles tried to keep his anger at bay, because this didn’t really involve him, wasn’t even about him and his family, but he couldn’t help it, because Tessa was ruining the peace he’d tried so hard to conjure within himself, and he was not going to allow her to continue this without a fight.

Although he’d been through this more than enough times with Isaac, Stiles was reminded of an incident with a student named Jake just a few weeks before. School was winding down, and although administration had warned about pulling artwork from the hallways and classrooms down early for fear of jolting students from their comfortable routines, many tired teachers had started the process of packing up for summer.

Stiles had been one of them.

He was moving classrooms and had an entire room of files, bookshelves, and manipulatives to go through, so of course he’d started his summer cleaning early. Stiles had cleared a bulletin board and had the students help him reorganize the classroom library, making a box of lower level books for the other first grade teachers to weed through. He’d emptied an entire shelf of math center manipulatives for first grade and returned the bins to the storage closet down the hall one day while his class was at gym. He’d felt great about it, actually, until he’d brought his class back. The students immediately continued with their Wednesday routine of completing independent reading. Everyone, that is, except for Jake.

Jake, a tiny boy with floppy blonde hair and dark brown eyes, had stood just in the front of the room while the rest of the students pushed around him and made their way over to the bins of books in the library. Stiles hadn’t noticed him at first, because Angela had needed a band-aid and Mya had won a Way to Go card for good behavior in the hallway, but it wasn’t long before the Jake’s heavy breathing caught his attention. The boy was standing at the front of the room with his shoulders up high, arms straight, and fists clenched. His grunting had captured the attention of the entire class, their books open in their laps but eyes focused on Jake. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it didn’t help that the boy had had a difficult time making friends.

Out of context, Stiles knew Jake’s behavior would be easily misjudged. He’d been known to throw things and yell out expletive comments when frustrated. It had taken hundreds of emails, stacks of documentation, and more meetings than Stiles could keep track of to push for Jake to receive an evaluation. And even after all of that, it had taken four months for the Department of Education to get their act together. A miracle, if Stiles knew one, because there had been cases where students had waited upwards of six months or more. By March, the boy had started receiving services for what had been labeled as a language-based learning disability. That meant a flurry of work with a speech therapist, counselor, occupational therapist, and resource room teacher. Stiles knew deep within his heart that the boy was somewhere on the autism spectrum, and though he would never be allowed tell a parent that those were his beliefs, he knew from their emails, phone calls, and meetings that they felt it might be that, too.

The stomping and tears began the moment Stiles looked over from his desk. Within seconds, the boy was grabbing books lining the whiteboard and chucking them across the room. Their pages splayed out as the flew, hitting desks, walls, and floors. The children in the library ducked, hiding beneath their own books. Some of them laughed, others yelled; Stiles made a mental note to deal with the bullying after.

Stiles hadn’t yet realized that the changes he’d made to the shelf in the right corner of the room was the reason for Jake’s outburst, but that didn’t stop him from going into action. He immediately called across the hall for Ashley’s assistant, Laurie, and had her watch the class while he somehow managed to pull Jake into the hallway and into his lap, arms holding him tight to calm him down.

“We’re okay,” Stiles whispered, a slight wheeze trailing his breaths from the physical struggle. “Breathe.” It took him a few minutes to get Jake to relax in his arms, his breaths evening out and fists loosening. “Do you want to talk about it?” Stiles finally asked, Jake shaking his head to say no.

It was always no. Stiles had assumed this, but he always asked, because he was secretly hoping that the speech therapy or the resource room time was maybe developing some of the skills Jake tried so desperately to master. Jake had the words, could form sentences and decipherable speech, but he couldn’t put his feelings into those words because his brain was not wired like everyone else’s.

“Do you know what Isaac’s favorite thing to do is?” Stiles asked, feeling Jake relax as he shook his head again. The boy loved hearing stories about Isaac and Max, and Stiles enjoyed telling them. “He loves loves loves to read books.”

Jake loved reading, too, so this statement had piqued his attention. When Stiles had completed reading assessments, Jake had already mastered a third grade level in first grade. He’d had to scour the book room to find higher-level books for Jake and found it difficult to keep up with the numbers of books in which he consumed.

“He has many favorites, but,” Stiles started, reaching over to grab a book that Jake had thrown into the hallway, “his absolute favorite author is Shel Silverstein.”

“Where the Sidewalk Ends,” Jake read softly.

“Let’s take a look,” Stiles said as he opened the book, stopping at his favorite Silverstein poem. “Ah, this is a good one. Spaghetti, spaghetti all over the place,” he started, adjusting the book so that Jake could see the picture. “Up to my elbows--up to my face, over the carpet and under the chairs, into the hammock and wound round the stairs, filling the bathtub and covering the desk, making the sofa a mad mushy mess. The party is ruined, I'm terribly worried, the guests have all left (unless they're all buried). I told them, "Bring presents." I said, "Throw confetti." I guess they heard wrong 'cause they all threw spaghetti!”

The happy laughter that followed allowed Stiles to slowly lead Jake back into the classroom, but not after a few more poems and a little bit of conversation about sidewalks, Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout, the shelf of math center bins that had disappeared over the course of one class period, and coping strategies. As he watched Jake work on a sheet of math problems at his desk an hour later, he wondered if maybe he was handling him all wrong. He hadn’t denounced his behavior with yelling in front of the class, and it probably hadn’t been good that he kept leaving his 28 other students with an assistant.

“His parent’s are divorcing,” Laurie had mentioned quietly to Stiles as they watched, but pretended not to watch, as Jake followed Stiles’ directions and picked up all of the books he’d thrown, replacing them to their places on the whiteboard ledge.

“Where’d you hear that?” Stiles asked, knowing how false information often floated around the school.

“Ash has his older sister. She’s been crying about it on the playground for a week now.”

“Thanks for the info, and thanks for helping me out,” he said, sighing. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem,” Laurie said, waving him off. Stiles had thought she’d left, but a moment later, he felt her hand on his shoulder and could hear her whispering in his ear. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing a really great job with Jake. I was an assistant for his class last year, and this,” she said, gesturing gently toward the front of the room where the books were appearing, one-by-one, on their ledge, “was a stage we never reached with Jake. I swear, you are a true miracle worker, Stilinski! I don’t know how you do it.”

It had been one of those far-and-few teaching moments that really made a person smile. Most of the time, teaching was standards, testing, politics, administration, and parents. Someone had tacked up a cartoon in the faculty room picturing a tired teacher stating, “Most days, teaching feels like giving back, but today it feels like giving blood...and a little bone marrow.” He hated how much he could relate to that stupid cartoon, and he hated how his vacation was really feeling like that as well.

“We’re okay,” Stiles whispered to himself. “Breathe.” He wished he could scoop Tessa up and press down on her arms to calm her. Stiles wasn’t sure how he knew it would work. Was it the tone in her voice? The way she was thrashing her arms and legs?

“No!” Tessa was screaming, straining her vocal chords. “Noooo!” She kicked at Scott as he tried to approach her, but she was no match for Allison who came from behind and squeezed her close, slowly pulling her into her lap on the floor. Tessa continued to yell, but Allison was stronger and was able to keep her grip on the child.

It had been the emotion, Stiles decided from his place on the couch. He’d been able to sense her sadness, how deeply affected she was about something deeper than Isaac getting to watch a movie in the car with Scott. Tessa’s deep sobbing confirmed this for Stiles. She had her arms and legs wrapped around Allison and was holding on for dear life. She was calling for Allison over and over, Allison responding with, “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here.”

As a parent, Stiles knew when a kid was being a kid, and when there was truly something wrong. Scott got down on his knees next to Allison and Tessa, the three of them now weeping softly as they held on to each other so tightly it seemed like they were one.

Stiles took that as his cue to go and check on Isaac, a tear slipping down his own cheek as he climbed the stairs.


	13. To the Moon and Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I haven't even been keeping count of the months between chapters, but I know it's been a while. Same excuses. Work, illness, life. I DO have stuff written, so I'm hoping it will roll out sooner than it usually does. Thanks again for reading!

“I thought maybe you and I should talk before we leave in a few days,” Derek said to Scott as they began to pack the car the next morning. He knew that the night before had been full of emotions for both families, and although everyone had seemed okay at breakfast, the adults had barely spoken.

“You mean about how I should raise Tessa?” Scott mumbled as he slid a large suitcase into the trunk, knowing Derek could hear him but wishing he couldn’t.

“No, actually.” Derek pushed his hands into his pockets and looked down, thinking of how he could put everything that had been bottled up inside in words. “I wanted to talk about Allison.”

“If it’s about the whole ‘running away together’ thing the other night, you should let it go. I was obviously-”

“That’s not what I meant,” Derek stated, his eyes lifting. “I wanted to talk about her...health.” The sentence came out so slow and garbled that he wondered if Scott had understood him.

“About her cancer.”

“Yeah.”

“You can say it out loud; Stiles knows.”

Derek let Scott’s words hang in the air between them for a moment. “I’m sorry that I was the one that sensed it,” he said, exhaling slowly as he waited for Scott’s response.

“You shouldn’t be sorry about that,” Scott assured him, his voice lighting up. “You saved her life.”

“I just thought that maybe you were upset with me because you and Tessa weren’t the ones...”

Scott put his hand up to stop Derek from going on. “I was angry with myself in the beginning of it all because I was afraid to lose her. I blamed myself and tried to focus my senses to her body, but honestly, I was useless. I even called Deaton for help, but even with all of his tips, I struggled. He said stress and exhaustion make it harder, and I was taking care of Tessa on my own for a few months while Allison recovered, so I never really got good enough at it.”

“I know how that is,” Derek said with a sigh, thinking about everything with Stiles and Isaac’s health, Max’s struggles. “I’ve been picking up a lot of the pieces for the last few months mostly on my own, too. It’s tough.”

“Have you ever thought about giving them the Bite?” Scott asked quietly.

“Every single day.” Derek could feel the tears pressing, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. Well. He knew why, but he didn’t understand why they were suddenly streaming down his face, the taste of salt hitting his lips. He’d always been able to control his emotions, especially in front of Scott. It was this stupid vacation full of everyone fighting and crying making him crazy.

“Sometimes having all of this power actually makes me feel pretty useless,” Scott chuckled softly, just low enough that it wasn’t overtly cheerful or somber.

“Yeah,” Derek said with a laugh and a sniffle, wiping the tears away from his face.

“I thought about it when Allison got really sick, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“A blessing and a curse of a burden,” Derek said, his voice quiet. 

Scott shifted his weight, wondering what he should say next. He’d already told Derek about his darkest battle, and it was only because they shared it. The silence between them grew, Scott grabbing another suitcase, and Derek following. “Stiles sent me emails about what you guys went through with Isaac, and then Max. Did you know that?” Scott finally added.

“No, but I figured as much.” Derek wasn’t surprised because he knew there had to be a way that his husband was dealing with the stress. It was always waxing and waning, and Derek figured maybe Stiles was keeping a diary or calling his father, but the emails made the most sense.

“Hey, do you remember when Stiles’ asthma got really bad in high school, after he and I stopped talking?” Scott asked, loading smaller boxes and bags into the back.

“When I basically kicked your door in and gave you a stern talking to? Yeah, how could I ever forget that conversation?” Derek gave a short laugh at the thought, his tears nearly dry. 

“We hadn’t spoken in months, but within seconds of me entering his room he had his arms around me and both of us just started crying.”

“I feel like maybe this is a conversation you should be having with Stiles,” Derek said, confused, as he pulled the trunk closed.

“I already had this conversation with Stiles, but not with you,” Scott said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “He’s always called me his brother, and I’ve always seen him as my best friend, my partner in crime. But now you’re in the picture and I never really realized until now that you’ve also kind of been a brother to me, too.”

“In the ‘always having to save your ass’ sense, or-”

“I can see Stiles’ sarcasm is rubbing off on you.” Scott smiled for a second before turning serious again. “But I mean it, man. You’ve had every reason to hate me these last few days. Everyone can see that I’m flailing. Fighting with Allison. Barely able to contain Tessa. Too obsessed with my own ego. You could have just packed your family up and left, but you stayed. And I know it was for Stiles, and probably Allison, but I want you to know it helped me, too.”

“Thanks.” Derek hadn’t been sure of what to say in response to Scott’s comments, and he wondered if maybe he’d made it worse with his choice of ‘thanks’ until Scott ran up the stairs to the beach house and grabbed Tessa by her waist, twirling her in the air. She giggled as her dark hair flew around her, Allison smiling from the doorway with Max in her arms.

It gave Derek an idea. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but had to at least try. 

x

“Is there a shuttle here, Papa?” Isaac asked as he took in the lobby of the American Museum of Natural History, his hand tightly clasped by Derek’s.

“No shuttles, but lots of dinosaurs!” Stiles explained excitedly, squatting down to Isaac’s level.

“Real dinosaurs?” Isaac asked nervously. His shoulders hunched forward in fear, his hand coming up to his lip.

“Just their bones, silly,” Tessa reassured Isaac, showing him the cover of the museum’s paper map. “They can’t hurt you because they’ve been dead for thousands of years.”

Derek could see that that wasn’t exactly making Isaac feel any more comfortable, so he jumped in with, “Hey, I think they have a section where we can learn all about different kinds of animals, Ize.”

“Like wolves?” Isaac asked, his face suddenly lighting up, fears forgotten.

“Mommy knows where the wolves are,” Tessa said, finger moving to a random place on the glossy paper as she pretended she could read the map. “She takes me to see them all of the time because they’re my favorite!”

“They’re my favorite, too!” Isaac said, jumping up and down in excitement. “I wanna see the wolves first! I wanna pet the wolves!”

“Slow down, buddy,” Stiles laughed, putting one hand on Isaac’s shoulder to settle him. “They’re not real wolves, just...statues of them. But maybe we can go to the zoo tomorrow if the weather holds out.”

“Stiles, I don’t know-” Derek interjected, Stiles cutting him off.

“We’ll see how the weather is tomorrow,” Stiles said, eyes on Derek’s as he emphasized the word ‘weather’ as a code word for Isaac’s breathing. They’d originally planned to go to the Bronx Zoo for the day, but Derek worried about the humidity and the dust in the air around the animals, so they’d opted for the museum instead.

“We talked about the ‘weather’ this morning,” Derek said to Stiles through gritted teeth as Scott returned with their tickets. “And I thought we agreed-”

“Two days ago you were telling me I needed to stop letting the ‘weather’ control our lives, and now you’re literally-”

“Papa! I wanna give the ticket lady our tickets!” Isaac beamed, his cheeks bright red and his smile wide. 

“But I wanna give the ticket lady our tickets!” Tessa whined.

“Tessa,” Allison warned, her voice surprisingly warm. “Isaac is our guest. Why don’t we let him have a turn?”

“We can share,” Isaac said sweetly, and Scott handed over an equal number of tickets to both of the children who each took a turn giving their set of tickets over to be ripped.

They started with the animal section, and then made their way through the dinosaur hall. Isaac did surprisingly well and even asked Derek if he could ride on his shoulders to get closer to the bones. 

“Papa! Look!” he’d yelled, his tiny voice echoing in the enormous room.

It instantly brought Derek back to just a few months earlier, right after Isaac’s fourth birthday. Derek had held Isaac's hand as they rode the escalator up toward the second floor of the California Science Center, the four-year-old’s eyes widening as the start of the space exhibits came into view. "Papa!" he had pointed excitedly. "Look!"

They’d made their way toward the Apollo and Mercury capsules, Derek lifting Isaac up against the thin railing so that he could look inside as Derek read off the informational panels about NASA beneath them. An hour later, they were finally standing beneath the Endeavor space shuttle, the black tiles lining the bottom of the immense aircraft catching Isaac's attention.

"So big!" he smiled from atop Derek's shoulders. "I wanna go inside!"

"Sorry, bud. We can only look."

"But I wanna see where the astronauts lived in space!"

"Why don't we eat some space food instead?" he asked, holding up the small package of freeze-dried ice cream sandwich Isaac had been excited about nearly an hour earlier.

"No," he whined as though he was physically pained at the realization. "Why can't we go inside?!"

"That's only for the NASA people, baby boy."

"Then I wanna be a astronaut!" he said, exasperated by the idea. "So I can be in the shuttle!" 

Derek remembered hating that the first thought to enter his mind was that if Isaac's asthma continued on its current path, he would never get to explore space. That his history of asthma alone would immediately disqualify him. Derek knew he would give up every power being a werewolf had ever given him if his son's immune system and lungs would just cooperate. 

Feeling the weight of Isaac's little backpack strung over one shoulder, the medicine that followed him wherever he went, hopping about with every footfall, Derek was always reminded of the truth: That he'd give Isaac the bite in a heartbeat if the chance of losing him didn't exist. In fact, it killed him to even think about it, but it never kept the thought from crossing his mind on the nights when the asthma and allergies were winning.

But for the moment, he had pretended that none of that was true. That Isaac could be whatever he wanted because four-year-olds change their minds every hour and what did it hurt to give him that happiness for the time being? They had backtracked through the museum to where they had passed a makeshift mission control earlier in the day. Derek paid the ride attendant ten dollars for the two of them to sit through a simulation of an Endeavor flight. Isaac was hooked the second they sat down, his little eyes wide as he held onto the bar in front of them with one hand, the other on Derek's knee for stability.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Stiles asked, his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “I’ve been calling your name.” 

“Just…thinking.” Derek’s voice was monotone, his senses adjusting to the bright, open layout of the dinosaur hall.

“We’re going to head over the the space stuff before we take a break for lunch,” Scott added, Tessa riding his back with her head on his shoulder. 

As soon as they reached the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History, Isaac began running up and down the winding ramp where miniature versions of the planets of the solar system were on display.

“Ize, don’t go too far! Der, can you take Max? She’s growing like a weed and my back is killing me!” he groaned, the two of them moving Max and the carrier.

Derek felt Max shift against his chest the second she was settled, her little hands clasping onto his shirt as she began to fuss. He hadn’t even had time to assess the situation before she was in full tantrum mode, her wails piercing the already high volume of the room. Allison appeared in an instant, and though Derek knew why, he didn’t let on, just followed Allison as she motioned to Scott that she was going with Derek to handle the baby.

“She does this when her senses get overloaded,” Derek mentioned, trying to still Max against his chest but with no change in her behavior as they found a quieter corner of the hallway. Allison began digging in her purse, finally pulling out a pair of baby noise-cancelling headphones.

“Trust me,” she said with a knowing smirk. “These are a true lifesaver!”

“Smart,” Derek commented as he placed them over Max’s ears and dark tufts of hair. Her whimpering slowed, and though she clutched at Derek’s shirt again, it was more out of content than frustration. “Thanks, Allison. You’re such a natural with her.”

The words rushed from his mouth before he could stop himself.

“I’ve loved getting to spend time with little Maxine,” Allison smiled, tapping the baby softly on the nose. She didn’t seem bothered by the comment, and Derek let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“She seems to really like you.” Derek smiled at the thought, but then wondered about Maxine growing up without a mother. It wasn’t like he and Stiles hadn’t spoken about it. Of course they had, but Stiles had always joked that two dads were better, which had quelled the thought in his mind.

“For what it’s worth, I think you two are great with her. She’s such a happy baby,” Allison commented, looking up at Derek.

“Thanks, but, we both know that isn’t true,” he said with a chuckle.

“Have I ever lied to you, Derek Hale?” Allison asked, a touch of playfulness in her voice. Trust Allison to flip a sore subject to a sweet one, he thought.

“You’ve never lied, but you’re definitely lying now because there is no way that I’m raising her even 50% correctly.” Derek could feel the sweat beading on the back of his neck, could feel the weight of Max on his shoulders.

“That’s why you have Stiles. For the other 50%,” she said with a smile, her eyes meeting his.


End file.
